Board of Governors hike tuition

The Board of Governors voted to raise tuition by 6.7 per cent today.

While the decision came as no surprise, student leaders condemned the trend towards restricted access to post-secondary education. Student Union President Sheamus Murphy said although the increase is lower than the 8.3 per cent allowable under provincial guidelines, it is "still too high for us to accept."

Citing skyrocketing student debt loads and the need for students to seek more employment than they can comfortably handle during the school year, Murphy placed primary blame on the government for "neglecting responsibility to pay for the education of its population.

"What are people thinking when they continue to put this burden on students - it's counterproductive. I continue to maintain that it hurts the university to increase tuition more than it helps."

Choking back tears, Graduate Students' Association President Kim Speers said an extra few hundred dollars in tuition may not seem crippling, but it can mean "students can buy the books they need for classes, that a student may not have to live on rice for two weeks, or that international students don't have to live in a poverty ghetto - that I don't have to give away my coat to an international student who can't afford one."

The 6.7 per cent increase represents about $223 over the current base tuition fee of $3,328, about $50 short of the 8.3 per cent cap (or 30 per cent of the operation costs of post-secondary education). Tuition has more than doubled since 1991.

VP academic Doug Owram, while supporting the increase, echoed student concerns that society is fast approaching a world where "only the rich go to university. The 1990's has seen a tremendous shift in the philosophy of post-secondary education and I don't think society as a whole has thought it through."

On a more positive note, board Chairman Eric Newell said this is the first time the university has approved an increase under the maximum allowable, but that a raise of 6.7 per cent was necessary to avoid a budget deficit. Even with the extra revenue, he said, the university will still have to dip dangerously into reserves.

"We are carefully monitoring internal spending and are looking to the outside for other sources of funding including increased government support," he said. [We are] committed to looking at other ways to increase revenues outside of increasing tuition."

Board member Don Mazankowski warned against holding out false hope for alternative funding sources, however. During discussion, he said there are no "glaring windfalls of money that appear obvious. In fairness, if you've really got some ideas about where we're blowing money foolishly, or where we can alternatively tap into sources of other funds, I think you owe it to the board to come forward and say so …We're sticking our necks out squeezing the reserve to the point we are."

Dr. Franco Passutto sympathized with students, agreeing that they "need relief, whether it be reduced tuition or increased bursaries," but said the increase could not realistically be avoided: "I wish more could be done, but it cannot."

Passutto added, however, that the university community is clearly united in feeling neglected by the provincial government. "The inadequacies of provincial funding are absolutely and unequivocally irrefutable. This government speaks of the value of an educated society, but its actions do not."

About 30 students showed up at the meeting to demonstrate their disapproval, some carrying placards. While many were disappointed, they said they saw it coming.

"This whole meeting I felt like I was a condemned man," said Mike Shulz. "I'm waiting for them to come and cut my head off, but I have to sit there and listen to them blather about details. Personally I'm a socialist. I feel education is a right, not a privilege - I don't think there should be any tuition."

However fourth-year science student Virha Wanigasekera said he appreciated efforts by administration to keep the raise under the cap, seeing it as "a symbolic move to consider the pressures students are under."

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