By Lily Gillespie

Reaction to the news of the increase in student fees, which college officials have been so careful not to call tuition, has been varied, to say the least.

Some students have responded with anger, others with indifference.

Some instructors have expressed concern that an increase in fees will affect applications for admission to their programs, and to the college, generally. Some have even expressed concern about the impact of the fee increase on present first-year students, who are basically being held hostage. They will have to live with the fact that they'll be paying as much as $500 more than they bargained for when they started their programs.

A more balanced approach to the situation is to try to answer the big 'Why' question, and ask ourselves what alternatives college administration was faced with. One possible alternative was to cut more programs. Cutting or changing programs and bringing in new ones is part of the life cycle of any college; times change, training needs change. The college keeps up with the shifting needs of the economy or it pays a drastic price. However, the college announced the demise of at least six programs earlier in the year, and that was enough.

No students will be happy with the prospect of paying any more than they already are. Any unexpected expense is likely to lead to a great deal of juggling. Some things, Christmas giving for example, which may have suffered severe cutbacks last year, may have to be eliminated altogether. But let's take the "glass is half full" approach. Here in journalism, we can exercise our creative faculties and try to write something really meaningful for each person on our gift list. The last Christmas of the millennium could turn out to be the most memorable one in terms of giving. Since the story of the fee increase broke, several pieces of information have come to light, things that are more bothersome than the fee increase.

Just before Christmas, The Surveyor broke the news that the college was running a deficit. Now we are faced with an astronomical fee increase and the president of the college is acting pretty defensive about it. So the college has a budget to balance and this is one way to do it. But "No", says the President, the extra money will be used to keep computers, the main tool of many programs, "maintained".

That's not what's so bothersome. What is? First of all, somewhere down the road the college has plans for a new building, one that is to go into the only green space the college has here in front of Charlottetown Centre. There should be something sacred about green spaces on college campuses. The idea that some of the extra money will be ferreted away each year to build another structure in one of the few open grassy spaces in Charlottetown is not something that any of us should feel good about.

The other bothersome piece of information that probably isn't keeping many students awake at night is the fact that Holland College instructors' wages were rolled back 7 1/2 per cent in 1994 and they are just approaching the point where their salaries are back to pre-roll-back levels.

Why should this be a concern to any of us? Instructors are fat cats who are over-paid and underworked and they have great holidays, right? Wrong. Teachers long ago lost the special place they had as purveyors of knowledge, perhaps rightly so. But those of us who fail to place the value it deserves on teaching, good teaching (and it's a rarity), do so at great risk to the future of our children and our country. Although it isn't money that keeps good teachers committed, the reality is that even the best can be lured away, all things else being equal.

Early in the century a unique thinker with the quaint name of Elbert Hubbard wrote: "I will never be quite willing to admit that this country is enlightened until we cease the inane and parsimonious policy of trying to drive all the really strong men and women out of the teaching profession by putting them on the payroll at one-half the rate, or less, than what the same brains can command elsewhere."

The quality of training students get here at Holland College is dependent on the quality of the instruction. Wouldn't it be a lot more fair if this fee increase meant that instructors were going to get even a tiny piece of the pie?

LG