HALIFAX (CP) - Nova Scotia's plan to cut university tuition fees is discriminatory because it excludes out-of-province students, political opponents and student advocates said Friday.
Tuition for Nova Scotia university students, who pay the highest tuition in the country, will be reduced by about $440 in January and could be further reduced next September.
But because the reduction was prompted by new federal money that was based on population, the province will only apply the cut to students from Nova Scotia.
That leaves out more than a third of the students that attend the province's 11 universities, said Chris Parsons of the Canadian Federation of Students.
"They are only providing assistance to some students studying in Nova Scotia," Parsons said after the tuition cut was announced Friday.
"Students who come from Ontario or come from Alberta or Quebec or B.C. to study in Nova Scotia can vote, they pay taxes in Nova Scotia, and this benefit should apply to them as well."
The tuition cut will be paid for by a $28.8-million transfer from the federal Infrastructure Trust Fund.
About $10 million will be used for the January tuition cut, while another $7 million will fund bursaries and apprenticeship programs. The remainder will be used next fall, with the bulk spent on maintaining or increasing the $440 cut.
"I don't think it was a particularly well-tuned announcement," said NDP Leader Darrell Dexter. "Differential fees . . . can drive down out-of-province enrolment, and universities in Nova Scotia are already suffering from declining enrolment."
Dexter went to Newfoundland on Friday to highlight the 500 Nova Scotia students taking advantage of Memorial University's lower tuition. It costs about $2,600 to attend Memorial, compared with the Nova Scotia average of $6,500.
He said the Nova Scotia tuition cut won't be enough to stop that trend.
Quebec is currently the only province to charge out-of-province students higher tuition fees. Quebecers pay less than $1,700 on average, while students from other provinces pay nearly $5,000.
Nova Scotia Education Minister Karen Casey said she doesn't think students from other provinces will stop attending school in Nova Scotia.
"If the tuition is high and they're still coming, then it must be quality," said Casey.
The average undergraduate tuition in Nova Scotia is more than $2,000 higher than the national average.
The province wants to bring tuition in line with fees across the country by 2010, and Casey said future cuts will be applied to all students.
"We see this as the beginning of moving towards the national average," she said. "We can't do that in one lump sum."
Nova Scotia Liberal Diana Whalen said the cuts were a positive step.
"The primary concern is the retention of young people in Nova Scotia, so it starts with asking Nova Scotians to choose a school here in our province," said Whalen.
Kaley Kennedy, who moved to Halifax from Toronto last year to attend the University of King's College, said she was hoping a tuition reduction would help control her $13,000 debt.
"When I was told that it wasn't going to include me, that was a heartbreak, that was horrible for me," said Kennedy, who is also involved with the Canadian Federation of Students.
"That $440 dollars could have provided a term's worth of groceries, that could have paid my rent for a month, it could have given me money for textbooks."
