No fees for first-years is ruling party pledge on Canadian election trail

MONTREAL

As Canadian tuition fees continue to soar, a provincial government that hopes to be re-elected next Thursday is offering a free year of university to high-school graduates.

Saskatchewan's ruling New Democratic Party recently unveiled its pre-election platform and made the usual campaign pledges, such as a balanced budget, more health-care workers and a crackdown on violent crime. One goody, however, stood out: free tuition.

The NDP, if elected, says it will provide high-school graduates with their first year of university tuition-free.

The Can$20 million (Pounds 8.4 million) promise is reported to be the first of its kind in Canada. The party's policy committee believes the scheme will keep young people from moving out of the prairie province. They also say they want to help students defray the steep costs of higher education.

New statistics show that the doubling of tuition fees in the past decade has been a result of the universities' offsetting reduced contributions. Those reductions were made by governments such as Saskatchewan's.

Provincial contributions to college operating budgets declined from 74 per cent in 1980 to almost 58 per cent in 1996-97. This academic year will see average fees for an undergraduate arts degree at Can$3,379, compared with Can$1,500 in 1990-91.

Last year saw an average 7 per cent increase in fees. Students of dentistry, who will not be exempt from Saskatchewan's election promise, have seen the highest increases from last year, a hike of 32.3 per cent.

Laura Kennedy, the University of Saskatchewan's associate vice-president of financial services, questioned how high the government's offer would go given that Saskatchewan universities are allowed to set their own fees.

She also asked if the free tuition would ignore the ever-increasing fees for such things as lab time and student union costs.

Existing students feel left out by the offer to first-year students.

"We want our goodies, too," said Heath Packman, a fourth-year student at the University of Regina.