Basic tuition fees will go up by 10 per cent, and individual universities will have permission to impose a second 10 per cent hike. "We're going to have to take that 10 per cent," says UW president James Downey.
"I'm pleased that it's not worse," UW provost Jim Kalbfleisch said a few minutes after Eves finished his speech. He said UW now stands to lose about $18 to $20 million next year. If Waterloo raises fees by the full amount, and doesn't lose any students as a result, that will bring in about $8 million in new money, leaving a $10 million gap, which is bigger than the Social Contract cuts of two years ago.
"This is going to mean a significant reduction in the number of people at Waterloo," Kalbfleisch said. He's hopeful that just about all the reduction can be made through the early retirement program that should be announced in the next couple of days. (Earlier, he'd estimated that it could save the salary budget $10 million a year.)
Cutting people through retirement, rather than through layoffs, still means cuts, the provost pointed out. "That doesn't address how we deal with the workloads, and with maintaining the quality of programs and services with a lot fewer people."
Jane Pak, president of the Federation of Students, doesn't sound pleased about the prospects: "This latest increase will mean that fees will have risen by over 60% in the last five years. . . . If the University decides to increase tuition by the full 20%, then a university education will be out of reach for not only future university students but it will also become inaccessible for some of our students that are currently on campus. This is especially true due to the absence of any reforms to student aid. As a result, accessibility and quality will suffer."
Other points from Eves's speech:
"The Ministry of Education and Training will work with colleges and universities to deregulate foreign student tuition fees as quickly as possible.The text of Eves's speech, and a news release about it, are available on the World Wide Web in two versions, for those with the Adobe Acrobat decoder and for those who prefer plain text. There's a key typographical error: the texts say university funding is being cut by $20 million, when it fact it's $280 million."Institutions will be required to set aside 10 per cent of any new revenues from tuition increases for the purpose of providing assistance to students in financial need.
"As promised in the Common Sense Revolution, the Government is now pursuing a review of the current student assistance program. Ontario will seek the federal government s assistance to develop a student aid plan in which repayments reflect income after graduation.
"The Minister of Education and Training will release a discussion paper in the new year on future goals for Ontario's colleges and universities. The paper will address issues such as student and provincial shares of post-secondary funding, accessibility, and program rationalization and co-operation. A four- to six-month consultation process will be undertaken to assist in developing a new framework for government policy on post-secondary education. The Minister of Education and Training will provide further details shortly."
The proposal, which comes from association president Ian Macdonald, instructs the assocation's board to "take the necessary steps to prepare FAUW for a move to certify" if there is no agreement by December 31 on rewriting the Memorandum of Agreement that governs relations between faculty members and their employer. In the latest FAUW newsletter, distributed yesterday, Macdonald announces that negotiations between the association and UW management have broken down and he sees no hope of rewriting the Memorandum by the end of December. At issue are grievance procedures, "financial exigency" provisions for eliminating jobs, a dues check-off process, and many other matters.
The newsletter says that in a recent survey, 70 per cent of association members and 37 per cent of other faculty who returned a questionnaire said they were in favour of a move to certify FAUW as a union. Next step would be a special general meeting of the association in early January to vote on a motion to certify.
The Pragma Council, made up of alumni and other professionals who advise UW's school of urban and regional planning, meets today and tomorrow for discussions of "The Greater Toronto Area -- Governmental Reorganization, Issues and Ideas for Change". Most sessions are being held in room 221 of Environmental Studies I. John Livey, executive director of the government's task force on the GTA, will be the dinner speaker tonight.
Chris Redmond
Information
and Public Affairs, University of Waterloo
(519) 888-4567 ext. 3004
credmond@watserv1.uwaterloo.ca