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Calming students. Tamir
Photo: Yaron Brenner

Tamir: 6% tuition rebate will be returned

Although government passed 2009 budget according to calculations that would reduce government funding for tuition, education minister tells student leaders tuition will not increase

Education Minister Yuli Tamir attempted to calm student leaders, who have been in an uproar in recent weeks over a Finance Ministry decision to cancel a 6% rebate on university tuition that has been granted to students since 2005, pursuant to a recommendation by the Winograd committee.

 

Monday night, the government passed the 2009 budget, which included baseline government funding of 20% of university tuition costs rather than the 26% funding allocation as called for by the Winograd committee. As stated, in the past four years, the government involvement in the final six percent has been approved by the Finance Ministry. This year's budget appears to be a de facto cancellation of the 6% rebate that, in practice, will lead to a 6% increase in individual tuition for students.

 

Earlier government meetings scheduled to discuss the issue of the rebate had been cancelled. The most recent meeting on the issue, which occurred several weeks ago, involved a Finance Ministry declaration that the 2009 budget would not allow for the traditional 6% rebate.

 

Student representatives took to the streets noting that, in the absence of a special meeting to return the funding, it would automatically not be renewed.

 

Despite the budget approval, Tamir told student union leaders that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert intends to make the issue a government priority and return the six percent rebate. She noted that the budget still needed Knesset approval before it passed.

 

Until such a decision is reached, representatives of university institutions have decided not to request the heightened student fees and to wait and see if the government will provide the additional 6% sum. This was agreed upon during a Tuesday meeting at Bar Ilan University between the Director General of the Israel Council for Higher Education Steven Stav and Director General of the Planning and Budget Committee of the Council for Higher Education Prof. Shlomo Grossman.

 

The planning and budget committee expressed its support for the students and reported that progress had been made during negotiations with the Finance Ministry regarding the rebate.

 

One way or another, someone will have to make up the 6%: University administrators announced that they will not be able to begin the upcoming year without it because they will be in a budgetary deficit.

 

Student leaders are trying to make sure that the burden falls on the government and not the students themselves. They have called on university students to withhold tuition payments until the issue is resolved.

 

Meanwhile, pursuant to student pressure, it was decided during the government budget meetings that a proposal for differential tuition – in which law, business and accounting majors would no longer receive government funding and thus be more expensive – would be taken off the table.

 


פרסום ראשון: 08.25.08, 16:20
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