18 August 2000 Lincoln accepts fees-freeze offer

Lincoln University has frozen next year's fees at this year's levels in return for the Government's offer of a 2.3 percent increase to the bulk funding grant.

The decision to accept the deal, offered in this year's Budget, was made at the August meeting of Lincoln University's Council. Acceptance follows the pattern of the other universities, who have already announced their decisions.

Lincoln predicts that accepting the offer will leave it with a funding shortfall of $810,000 next year, a situation not dissimilar to the situation of other institutions.

"The total of tuition subsidies and domestic fees is not the whole of an institution's income," said Vice-Chancellor Dr Frank Wood. "In Lincoln's case the offer will produce a little less than $450,000, net of GST, or about 0.7 percent of forecast income for 2001."

Council members were told that Lincoln University's business plan income projections for 2001 assumed that trading would rise by $550,000 and that research contracts would increase by $350,000.

"But these figures relate to highly competitive markets," said Dr Wood and there is no certainty these targets can be met.

"The Government's fees stabilisation offer is well intentioned. It is however inadequate in financial terms. The fact that it has been accepted by all of Lincoln's competitors means that there is no real alternative to acceptance of the offer."

Otago University, which announced its acceptance of the offer early in the piece, has also stated that the offer is "not generous". It pointed out that it does not even cover the projected rate of inflation on the Government grant and tuition fee income.

In support of the fees freeze Lincoln University Students' Association wrote to the Council saying that while it acknowledged that the proposed increase in funding did not provide enough to support the University's initiatives and developments, and as a consequence it knew that financial constraints would be forced on the University, it recommended that the damage caused by declining the Government's offer would be more detrimental that accepting the limited funding offer.

The association cautioned that if fees were to rise again next year, in light of the fees freeze at other universities, there could be a big impact on recruitment and existing students might be forced to drop out.

In a letter to the Chancellor, the Associate Minister of Education (Tertiary Education) Steve Maharey, pointed out that the fee stabilisation move was one of a suite of initiatives taken to date as part of the Government's overall goal of ensuring that tertiary education was affordable to students.

Lincoln's Chancellor, the Hon. Margaret Austin, said that the Government-­encouraged freeze could only be for one year because if repeated it would in fact be in conflict with the autonomy section of the Act under which universities operated which required them to manage their affairs.