The Cadre +

7 April 1998

Nfld government puts $4-million into scholarships

BY MICHAEL CONNORS

ST. JOHN’S (CUP) — Ina provincial budget that gave a little something to everyone, the Newfoundland government promised $4-million in schol- arships for post-secondary stu- dents but no tuition freeze. The government will provide enough money for 4,000 need- and merit-based awards worth up to $1,000 each, Finance Minister Paul Dicks announced in the March 26 budget speech. The pro- gram, to be active for the next two years, will bridge the fund- ing gap between next fall and the year 2000, when the Ot-

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The actual form the scholarship program will take and the criteria for tapping into the funds, however, have not been set. These matters will be determined over the sum- mer by a committee of educa- tion stakeholders that will in- clude.

“I! do think there has been a very substantial invest- ment here on behalf of stu- dents,” Premier Brian Tobin said. “I think we've listened to the representation we’ ve heard and I would be disappointed if that were not acknowledged. And I think it will be by the student leadership.”

Student leaders, who were expecting no more than a$500,000 scholarship _fol-

“We went into the budget expecting the worst,” Tracey O'Reilly, Memorial University’s student union president, said. “We've been lobbying for a grant system for along time. We said, ‘If you're going to dothis, you have todo it right.” There’s no sense in putting just $500,000 in, and that’s what they were talking about.”

But O'Reilly adds this new scholarship program has the same problem as the Mil- lennium Fund because it over-

are already in debt, and there’s really nothing for them in this budget,” she said

O'Reilly says the state of the province's loan remis- sion program needs to be looked at next, because not enough students are qualifying for it.

Dale Kirby, chair of the Newfoundland component of the Canadian Federation of Stu- dents, says the money put into scholarships was better than nothing, but adds the help it provides will be reduced be- cause the government didn’t allocate anything to freeze ris- ing tuition fees at the prov- ince’s only university

“Any time $4-million ts injected into post-secondary education, it’s a good thing,” he said. “But it’s difficult to support when you look at the fact that they're climinating $3-million from Memorial's

the budget. It’s probably a good

example of robbing Peter to pay Paul.”

Memorial University is entering the final year of a three-year budget plan which has seen its grant cut by $14-million since 1996. Tuition fees, which currently stand at about $3,200 a year for a full course load, are sched- uled to increase by 5 per cent this summer to offset part of the cut. Memorial's operating budget will be roughly $100- million next year.

Memonial president Art May says the university can handle this year’s cut, but adds if the trend continues, the school will run out of manocu- vring room.

“We must have more

versity,” he said pushed tuition fees as hard as

they can be pushed. I don’t |

think it’s logical for the gov-

ernment to put out [money] for |

Millennium scholarships, and then for universities to take [it] back through fee increases.”

The government did, however, stabilize funding for the provincial public college

system, although Kirby says | college students could still be |

looking at a 10 per cent tuition fee increase next fall. Education Minister Roger Grimes says he under- stands the budget didn’t ad- dress all student concerns. “It won't be to their to- tal satisfaction,” he said.* {But}

— a rt)

government doesn’t have the fiscal capability to institute across-the-board measures such as tuition freezes, or tui-

Other spending initia- tives in the budget included $2. 1-million for youth employ- ment and

$50-million for construc- tion and upgrading of primary and schools. With a projected deficit of $10-million next year, the province is also spending moncy to stabilize health and social programs, in-

percent over the next three years and putting an extra $30- million into health care.

The budget, which gen- erally spread small amounts of moncy around to all sectors, also included no new taxes

and a 7 percent pay increase for public servants.

With files from Sean Ryan

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