Students and staff are joining forces on Thursday April 26th at 4:30pm at Simcoe Hall Council Chambers (27 King’s College Circle) to demonstrate and vote against the university administration’s proposal to implement tuition fee hikes at Governing Council.

Don’t go because you hate paying even more of your hard earned cash toward tuition. Don’t go because the university administration is further encroaching on the autonomy of student government by attempting to implement the proposal over their opposition. Go because the press release claims the demonstrators will use “creative methods” to voice their discontent.

Creative methods? That’s a teaser if I ever heard one. The full press release after the jump.

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We’ve all heard a lot about the tuition fees issue recently, with the February 7th Rally and the Freeze Tuition Fees Campout. There are a lot of students who wish for lower tuition fees, and they’re pretty vocal about it. We don’t often hear arguments for the other side, at least not from students. So, when a friend offered to write up a piece arguing that tuition fees are NOT too high, I was pretty interested to hear what he had to say. I realize that the whole tuition fee issue is a contentious one and there’s a lot to consider. However, below is one student’s take on it.

There is only one fact that everyone can agree on when it comes to university: no one wants to pay tuition. In fact, there are entire student groups devoted to reducing tuition, freezing tuition or even doing away with it altogether. Recently, one of these groups, the Canadian Federation of Students held a “National Day of Action!” to call for a reduction of tuition fees across Canada. They claim “Education shouldn’t be a debt sentence” and “access… shouldn’t be determined by the size of your wallet”. Bold claims from a bold group. (more…)

As I’m typing (which is quite a challenge right now, with cold hands and mittens on), UTSU and crew are setting up their campsite for the Freeze the Fees Campout. The tents have been assembled and the message “Freeze Tuition Fees” is spray-painted red-on-white on the snow, on front campus in front of University College.

It’s cold here, but spirit are high. People are shouting instructions, mattresses are being unrolled, tarps are being pinned down, and tents are being blown over in the wind.

“We’re going to have a campfire, hot dogs, and marshmallows”, Jen, the UTSU president tells me.

Well, a campfire sounds good. It’s really cold out here. Oh, did I say that already? My best wishes to the campers. I hope they don’t literally freeze for a tuition fee freeze.