By IPS Correspondents
KINGSTON, Apr 25 1996 (IPS)

The news hit suddenly and hard and only served to add to the chaos of last minute studying for final examinations beginning next week.

Students at the three campuses of the regional University of the West Indies (UWI) are to begin paying increased tuition fees as of next semester, the institution announced. The fee hikes range from 20 to 200 percent.

The news has devastated the students.

“The increases are very big no matter what faculty you are from and regardless of your economic background. I do not know if I will be able to return,” said a clearly distressed first year social science student.

The new fees mean that first time students will pay 15 percent of the total economic cost of their tertiary education, while returning students will pay 10.7 percent.

Translated into dollars, pre-clinical students in the Faculty of Medical Sciences at the Mona campus in Jamaica will pay 1,542 dollars up from 873 dollars, while clinical students will pay some 3,111 dollars (118,219 Jamaican dollars) up from 1,311 (49,900 Jamaican dollars).

For students entering the Faculties of Arts and General Studies, Education and Law the fee has been moved from just over 500 dollars to up to 1,173 dollars.

Social Science students, because of their overwhelming numbers, are the least affected with their payments going from 422 dollars to 861 dollars.

The Guild of Undergraduates has pledged not to meekly submit to the new fee structure. It has asked for a meeting with the University Council and wants to see the institution’s budget for 1993 to 1997 to judge for itself if the increases are fair or necessary.

“We are hoping that the dialogue will be fruitful but we will be keeping our options open,” says guild president Ivanhoe Cruickshank.

The timing of the announcement many students find significant.

“The university has used very good tactics. They have announced the increase at a time when they know the students would not be in a position to go on the streets and demonstrate or shut down the university because everyone is busy studying,” says the Social Science student who requested anonymity.

In 1986, when the then Jamaica Labour Party (JLP) government had announced the re-introduction of university tuition fees after more than a decade of “free education” students marched on the streets and held mass rallies outside the Ministry of Education protesting the decision. It gained them nothing however. A cess was imposed and since then the UWI has gradually moved up the cost of its education.

University officials say the decision announced earlier this week was made way back in 1993. Inflation in Jamaica and in Trinidad and Tobago have pushed up costs without compensating adjustment in the percentage increase, the institution said, implying that even this current round of increases is not as high as it could have been.

But there is no appeasing the majority of the students, many of whom have had a difficult time surviving under the current fee structure.

Statistics from the administration’s office show that a full- time arts student living on the Mona campus spent 3,480 dollars (132,245 Jamaican dollars) for the 1995/96 year, with costs for accommodation, meals and books amounting to much more than the tuition fees.

The students who are the luckiest in this whole scenario are Barbadians studying at the Cave Hill campus in that country. Earlier this year the Owen Arthur administration reiterated its commitment to funding their education, despite a commission report that proposed that the students pay 50 percent of the cost of their university expenses.

“We have determined that in the same way we can bring about fiscal incentives and subsidies for inputs pertaining to the economic sectors, whether duty-free for manufacturing or tourism, the government will treat the question of students’ fees as an economic cost that we are committed to pay,” said that country’s education minister Mia Mottley.

The other students with no state support to fall back on are suggesting that rather than raising tuition rates, the university concentrate on collecting outstanding contributions from delinquent governments.

Seventeen of the region’s territories contribute to the upkeep of the university and they owe the institution 53 million U.S. dollars. In the past the university council has barred entry to students from defaulting governments, but this has not worked.

Meanwhile, observers are predicting the demise of the university because of the steep fee hike. Once again, they say registration is bound to fall come next semester.

But if the last ten years are any indication, the university will have nothing to worry about. Despite the re-introduction of fees in Jamaica in 1986 enrolment at Mona has increased over the last decade. This year 16,553 students were registered in all eight faculties on the three campuses up from 10,718 in the 1985/86 academic year.

In the meantime the university is getting some support for its decision. “What money the government has to devote to education should go primarily to the primary and secondary schools.

“Those who want to go on to tertiary level should be prepared to pay or win the available scholarships. They should work and save and borrow and when they graduate and are working repay the loans,” says Carl Wint, a veteran journalist here.

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