QUEBEC CITY - More than a 1,000 students descended on Quebec City Monday to protest student tuition fees, arguing that if fees go up, the number of graduates will go down.
Many travelled from Montreal to Quebec City to protest outside a conference held by the Education and Finance Ministers to discuss post-secondary funding.
The students argued that rather than hiking tuition, the government should be doing its best to lower tuition, or even make it free.
"Education is a collective right, and a collective benefit, so we think its financing should be collective too," said Gabriel Nadeau-Dubois, a student at UQAM.
The students argue that Quebec has the highest per capita rate of university students in the country, and they fear that as tuition increases, those least able to afford the price will not attend.
They also argue that since university graduates tend to earn more than people with only high school or Cegep degrees, the province should encourage people to attend.
"We want everyone to participate in the funding of post-secondary education," said Nadeau-Dubois.
Finance minister Raymond Bachand says he is not fond of hiking rates, but says students have to wake up to fiscal reality.
The province is running a deficit, and currently the government provides more than 50 percent of funding for the province's universities.
Bachand says hiking tuition fees is the only reasonable way to ensure funding for schools does not drop.
"Students should pay their fair share of the cost. They used to pay 25, 24 per cent of the cost in the 60s," said Bachand.
"Today they pay 13 per cent. Who pays the difference? It's the taxpayer," said Bachand.
The finance minister says he will not be swayed by the crowd, and says tuition hikes he initially mentioned in his budget this past spring will remain.
