"The additional funds from the Ministry of Advanced Education went a long way to help mitigate the impact on students and to enable us to offer new programs that are badly needed by our communities and that a lot of people want to take," says UCFV President Skip Bassford.

The budget also allows for an increase of $50,000 to the library resources budget and the addition of $200,000 for scholarships, bursaries, and a student work-study program. As tuition fees are increasing, UCFV has recognized that it will be more difficult for many students to finance their studies. With the addition of more funds this year for bursaries and the work-study program, a total of $570,000 will now be available for UCFV students who are in need of additional support.

Employment opportunities on campus for students will be significantly increased with the expansion of the popular work-study program. As well, this year UCFV will develop a Career Centre, which will help more students find part-time employment and assist graduating students to find jobs.

The additional $4.3 million will be mainly covered by overall tuition fee increases, increases to laboratory fees, and the introduction of tuition fees for College and Career Preparation (CCP) students who already have a high school diploma. Courses for these CCP students were previously tuition-free. There will continue to be no tuition fee for those students enrolling in CCP courses who do not have a high school diploma.

At UCFV the tuition fees for the majority of students will increase again this year from approximately $68 per course credit to an average of $100 per course credit. Most courses are rated as three or four credits. This increase will keep UCFV tuition fees approximately the same as the other four university colleges in BC , lower than the larger BC universities, and considerably below the national average. This will increase the amount of the direct cost of their attendance at UCFV that students pay from approximately 18% to 22%. The remaining 78% is covered by the provincial grant and from other sources of revenue for the university college.

Under the new fee structure, tuition for full-time students at UCFV will cost approximately $3,000 per year, which will be about the same as at the other four university colleges in B.C. This compares to average tuition fees of approximately $3,500 per year at the larger B.C. universities, which are themselves several hundred dollars below the average tuition fee at other universities across Canada.

"Once again, producing a balanced budget for the coming year was matter of juggling a number of major factors," said UCFV President Skip Bassford. "As usual, one major challenge was to meet our contractual obligations while trying to maintain the range of programs and services that our students need. Beyond that we tried to shore up some areas that need additional support such as the library and student activities, which add to the value of the educational experience.

"At the same time, we realized that the increase in fees will mean that more students will be on the borderline of whether or not they can afford to attend UCFV. For this reason, we made a deliberate decision to add additional funds to our scholarship, bursary, and work-study programs, to assist students who most need help to achieve their goals."

"I am also very pleased that we will be able to introduce the long overdue Teacher Training program for UCFV students and to begin the Licensed Practical Nursing program, which already has a huge waiting list of prospective students and good jobs waiting for graduates.

"In preparing the budget we were also determined not to reduce the overall number of courses available to students and we will continue to add more courses in high demand areas as much as possible. As well, we were able to enhance a number of areas which support extracurricular activities for students and add to the important learning that also takes place outside the classroom."

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