MORE than P1 billion in educational assistance has been released to 414,482 students, the Department of Social Welfare and Development said.

DSWD Assistant Secretary Romel Lopez said that P1,033,610,800 was distributed from August 20 to September 17.

Of the figure, P544,993,800 went to 136,349 college and vocational students while P175,471,000 was released to 58,502 senior high school students.

Lopez said the department has also released P185,728,000 to 92,856 high school students while the P127,418,000 were received by 126,775 elementary learners.

Up to 400,000 poor students are expected to benefit from the educational cash support program which was allotted a budget of P1.5 billion.

The DSWD received around 2 million applications for the educational assistance program, which will be available until September 24, 2022.