GUELPH, Ont. (CUP)—Queen’s University has joined U of T in hoping to make students pay as much as $20,000 per year to attend law school.

On Feb. 1, the Queen’s faculty of law held a board meeting addressing dean Allison Harvison Young’s proposal to increase tuition.

Harvison Young said boosting fees is a necessary measure to ensure the university’s law school can continue to provide quality education.

“The size of the increase has been necessitated by continuing cutbacks in government support and the rising costs,” she said. “Also, the recruitment of newer professors has become more expensive.

“Another factor for us is the reality of facilities that are in desperate need of renovation, and which are at present inaccessible.”

Harvison Young added the changes will not apply until the 2004-05 school year.

Joel Duff, the Ontario chair of the Canadian Federation of Students, said the law faculties shouldn’t be downloading escalating costs onto the backs of students.

“The faculty boards are fundamentally flawed in the position that they’re taking,” said Duff.

“What they’re really doing by hiking up the tuition is putting the student in substantial debt. And after they graduate, they’re not getting a good job because of this debt.

“There are so many ways a lawyer can help society, but when they’re in the hole, they’re only looking to help themselves.”

Rebecca Jaremko Bromwich, spokesperson for the Society of Graduate and Professional Students at Queen’s (SGPS), says she hopes for solidarity between faculty members and students.

“I have nothing against the dean of our law school,” she said.

“I think she’s doing a great job and I understand that the law school is in dire need of money. But we need to act against the government, not the students,” she said.

Although current law students will be protected from the hikes, many fear the change will result in fewer minority, underprivileged and publicly-supported candidates for law school.

University of Toronto law faculty dean Ron Daniels has said that since many professors face the lure of higher salaries in the United States, the tuition increase is imperative for the university to hold on to these teachers.

Daniels said the remainder of the money garnered from fee hikes will be used to increase student aid in the form of bursaries and after-graduation student-debt relief.

Minutes from the Queen’s faculty of law board meeting have not yet been made public.