PORT OF SPAIN, Trinidad (CMC) – The Pro Vice-Chancellor and Principal of the St Augustine campus of the University of the West Indies (UWI) Professor Brian Copeland on Wednesday confirmed that the tertiary institution is seeking to increase its tuition fees.

Speaking on a local radio talk show, Professor Copeland, who is due to demit office in July, said that a final decision will most likely be taken when the University Council meets on April 29.

Copeland, who gave no indication as to the level of fee increase being sought, nonetheless defended the move, telling radio listeners that there were students who were not yet born now attending the university when the fees were last adjusted in 2001.

“Fee increases represent one of the strategies we have for making the campus’ finances much more robust,” he said, noting that the university has been faced with “financial deficits in the past”.

He said last year, the campus recorded a “slight surplus” but that it went straight to bolster the situation with one of the faculties.

“We have challenges with our finances and I have to say…I didn’t know you could work in a company where the cost of your product has been stagnant for 21 years. That’s where we are right now,” he said

“There are students we have taken in who were not even born in 2001 when the last fee changed, but it is not the reason for looking at it, it is really an issue of bringing our finances in line with the formula used across all other campuses that has been agreed to for many years, whereby students pay for 20 per cent of the economic costs of the university,” Copeland added.

“Right now it sits at around 12 or 13 per cent, but the main reason is to get us to state where we are much more robust, much more able to keep the campus afloat,” the St Augustine Principal said.

Apart from the Open Campus and St Augustine, the UWI has campuses in Jamaica, Barbados, as well as Antigua and Barbuda.

Copeland said while the fee increase had not yet been officially confirmed, the first official meeting will take place on Thursday with two other rounds of discussions culminating in the University Council meeting at month-end.

He said a meeting had been held with the Guild of Under Graduates on Tuesday and “of course, they would prefer the fees to remain but they understand the reason why we are taking this stand.”

“One of the initiatives that have been driving for the last six years is to get the campus community to realise exactly that we are a business. We are not a corporate business, we are into education, we are into lifting the citizenry and so on (but) we have to show at least a minimal surplus at the end of the year,” Copeland said.

“We have tried many times in the past to increase tuition and we have not been successful in getting that through to the various committees that need the approval,” he said, questioning also whether it is a good time or not to announce the fee increase,” he continued.

“We recognise the challenge that exists but we believe that if we don’t make that move in this particular year then it will be another 20 years before we start seeing any significant motivation to make those changes in the fees,” he said.

Copeland said that while undergraduate students were “levelling off”, those pursuing post-graduate studies “fell off precipitously”, saying it is a reflection of the decision by the current administration to review the Government Assistance for Tuition Expenses Programme (GATE) “when basically funding for post-grad programmes had been removed”.