Students face higher fees

Student fees at Waikato University are set to rise again next year.

Yesterday, the university's finance committee proposed a 3.39 per cent rise in domestic student fees and a 3.48 per cent increase in postgraduate fees for 2005. It would add about $120 to most students' fees.

The proposal will be presented to the university council's October meeting.

University chief operating officer Geoff Balme said the university needed an extra $4.5 million next year from the Government, domestic fees and international fees.

Waikato Student Union president Sandy Pushpamangalam said he was not happy.

"There is no good reason why fees should increase. We want the vice-chancellor's committee to work with the student union to try to get more money from the Government, but they refuse to."

Massey University will set its fees tomorrow with staff supporting students in opposing what they say is a 5 per cent increase, the maximum allowable under Government policy.

However university administration yesterday said that the increase would be an average of 3.8 per cent.

The choice of the registry for the meeting to set the fees has upset the Massey University Students' Association (MUSA) because it was smaller than the refectory, which had room for about 150 spectators.

MUSA president Adam Maynard said the university council had the same status as a local authority and its meetings should be public.

"I think it's a dangerous move considering what happened at Victoria (scuffles between security guards and students)," he said. "They didn't have room for a lot of people to spectate, and locked out a lot of people from a meeting which is meant to be a public one," he said.

MUSA campaigns coordinator Kane Forbes said the university council seems intent on keeping the public out of the fee-setting session, but MUSA intends to have its delegation present.

The Association of University Staff's campus committee has come out in support of the students, saying the answer to inadequate funding lies with the Government, not in squeezing the student body.

- NZPA