TL;DR: Northern Philippines College for Maritime, Science and Technology in San Fernando, La Union runs seven degree programs: Marine Transportation, Marine Engineering, Electrical Engineering, Mechanical Engineering, Hospitality Management, Criminology and Information Technology. Five of the seven lead to a PRC licensure examination. The maritime and criminology programs carry medical screening gates you have to clear before you are admitted, not after. Tuition is not published, though the scholarship structure is.
The name tells you where the school's centre of gravity is, but NPCMST is not only a maritime school. Its published Programs Offered list runs across four different professional fields, and the practical differences between them — in screening, in licensure, in what the first job looks like — are larger than the shared campus suggests.
The seven programs
| Program | Abbreviation | Leads toward |
|---|---|---|
| BS Marine Transportation | BSMT | Deck officer track at sea |
| BS Marine Engineering | BSMar-E | Engine officer track at sea |
| BS Electrical Engineering | BSEE | PRC electrical engineering licensure |
| BS Mechanical Engineering | BSME | PRC mechanical engineering licensure |
| BS Hospitality Management | BSHM | Hotel, restaurant and cruise operations |
| BS Criminology | BSCrim | Criminologist licensure and the uniformed services |
| BS Information Technology | BSIT | IT roles, no licensure exam |
The school also runs a senior high school programme, which matters if you are looking at a pathway from Grade 11 through to a degree on one campus.
The maritime programs, and the gate in front of them
BSMT and BSMar-E are the school's identity, and they are also the two programs where admission is not decided by grades alone.
The school publishes a two-stage medical screening for maritime applicants:
Stage one — pass all three, or you stop here
- Ishihara test (colour vision)
- Audiometry (hearing)
- Hepatitis B screening (HBsAg)
Stage two — only if you cleared stage one
- Complete blood count
- Urinalysis
- Fecalysis
- Chest X-ray, PA view
The school states plainly that only enrollees who pass all three stage-one tests continue to the rest. It also requires maritime applicants to pass a psychological test covering IQ, aptitude and personality, and to pass the medical and physical examination required by CHED.
This ordering is deliberate and it is in your favour. Colour vision and hearing are hard requirements of the seafaring profession, not school preferences — a colour vision deficiency will end a deck-officer plan regardless of academic ability. Better to find out at application than after two years of tuition. If you or your child have never had an Ishihara test, get one before you apply anywhere, not just here.
One more maritime-specific rule: first-year maritime applicants are asked to bring a parent or guardian during the enrollment period for the interview process. Plan the day around that.
For what the career actually looks like after the degree, our maritime courses guide covers the apprenticeship and licensure sequence, and seafarer salary levels in the Philippines covers the money side, which is usually the real reason families choose this path.
Criminology, and why it has its own medical list
BS Criminology at NPCMST carries three published medical requirements: Hepatitis B screening, the Ishihara test and a drug test. That is a shorter list than maritime but longer than the other programs, and it maps to where criminology graduates go.
The degree leads to the Criminologist Licensure Examination, and from there into the Philippine National Police, the Bureau of Jail Management and Penology, the Bureau of Fire Protection, the NBI and private security and investigation work. Those services run their own physical, medical and drug screening at entry, so the school is effectively front-loading part of a filter the student will meet again later.
Our BS Criminology guide sets out the licensure and career path in full, and board exam passing rates by course is worth reading before you commit to any licensure-track degree.
The engineering programs
BSEE and BSME are both PRC board programs, ending in the Registered Electrical Engineer and Registered Mechanical Engineer licensure examinations respectively. In a coastal province with shipping, power and light industry, they also sit sensibly alongside the maritime programs — marine engineering and mechanical engineering share a good deal of underlying content, though they are separate degrees with separate licensure routes and you cannot substitute one for the other.
The school does not publish medical requirements for either program, which suggests admission runs on the standard document set.
Hospitality and IT
BS Hospitality Management is the school's non-technical option, and the only published extra requirement is Hepatitis B screening — standard for programmes with food handling and practicum placements. La Union's tourism corridor gives local practicum options, and the cruise industry is a natural crossover for a school with maritime links. Ask specifically which hotels, resorts and operators the school has practicum agreements with, because in hospitality that list is the programme.
BS Information Technology is the one degree here with no licensure exam and no published medical requirement. That makes the questions different: ask about the laboratory equipment, the specialisation tracks in the later years, and where recent graduates are actually working. IT programmes vary far more between schools than board-exam programmes do, because there is no external examination forcing a common standard.
What it costs, and what the school will not tell you online
NPCMST does not publish tuition. Not per unit, not per semester, not per program. What it does publish is the discount structure, which is only useful once you have the base figure.
| Scholarship or discount | Benefit |
|---|---|
| Entrance scholarship, with highest honours | 100% tuition discount |
| Entrance scholarship, with high honours | 50% tuition discount |
| Academic scholarship, Category 1 | 70% tuition discount |
| Academic scholarship, Category 2 | 50% tuition discount |
| Full payment during enrollment period | 10% tuition discount |
| Sibling enrolled in college | 5% tuition discount |
| Relatives of NPCMST employees | Tuition discount, terms not published |
| Varsity | Tuition discount, terms not published |
| CHED Supervised Scholarship Program | Government-funded, terms set by CHED |
Note the 10 percent early-payment discount in particular. It is the only one every student can access regardless of grades, and it tells you the school expects instalment payment to be the norm.
Ask the registrar for a written schedule covering tuition per unit, laboratory fees per program (maritime and engineering laboratory fees are usually the difference between programs), the medical examination costs, and the uniform requirement, which is substantial for maritime and criminology students.
How to choose between them
Seven programs on one campus can read as a menu, but they sort into three very different commitments.
Licensure-track, high screening. Marine Transportation, Marine Engineering and Criminology. You clear a medical gate to get in, you sit a national licensure examination to get out, and your employability is largely decided by whether you pass it. The upside is that the standard is external and portable — a licence is a licence wherever you apply. The downside is that a failed board exam leaves you with a degree that does not do the job it was bought for.
Licensure-track, standard entry. Electrical Engineering and Mechanical Engineering. Same board-exam logic, no medical gate, and the widest range of employers of anything on this list, since both licences travel across construction, manufacturing, power and shipping.
No licensure. Hospitality Management and Information Technology. Employability here is decided by the practicum network and the skills you actually leave with, not by a national examination. That makes the school's industry links the thing to interrogate, and it makes it much more important to ask where recent graduates ended up.
If a student is undecided, the medical screening is a useful forcing function. Take the Ishihara and audiometry tests first. If the maritime path is closed on medical grounds, that removes two options before you have spent anything, and the answer arrives in an afternoon rather than a year.
Questions worth asking before you enrol
- Which programs have current CHED government recognition, and which are still on permit
- For maritime: the school's shipboard training arrangements and which shipping companies take its cadets for the apprenticeship
- Recent licensure examination passing rates by program, in writing
- Total first-year cost including uniforms, medical examinations and laboratory fees, not just tuition
- Whether the entrance and academic scholarships are renewable, and what grade average keeps them
- Class sizes in the programs you are considering
If you are comparing across the province before committing, other schools in San Fernando, La Union are the place to start.
Sources
- NPCMST — Programs Offered, Registrar section (npcmst.edu.ph/registrar_section.php?idmain=9)
- NPCMST — Admission Requirements, new students and transferees (npcmst.edu.ph/registrar_section.php?idmain=24)
- NPCMST — Medical and Physical Examinations (npcmst.edu.ph/registrar_section.php?idmain=25)
- NPCMST — Scholarship and Privileges, Academic Affairs section (npcmst.edu.ph/academic_affairs_section.php?idmain=26)
- NPCMST — home page (npcmst.edu.ph)
