Most Yukon College students will be paying more for their courses next year.

The college announced its plan to hike most post-secondary tuition fees for the 2009/2010 school year last Friday afternoon. The exception is adult basic education programs to prepare people for post-secondary programs.

"No one wants an increase," college president Terry Weninger conceded in an interview this morning.

The struggle to balance between what the individual student can pay (recognizing the benefit to the student) versus the burden to taxpayers is an ongoing affair, he added.

The move comes after 18 months of consultation with students and stakeholders along with work by an individual consultant looking at what other colleges are charging students.

There was a "reluctant understanding" by those consulted of the need for the increase, Weninger said.

The boosts will see the college receive an additional $125,000 from tuitions, bringing the figure up to $700,000, with tuitions making up about four per cent of the college's budget.

The hikes will still leave the college's tuition fees within the bottom third of similar schools across the country, Weninger stressed.

"We know we're not charging anywhere near the equivalent (of other schools)," Weninger said.

Under the new fees Canadian and Alaskan students will pay beginning July 1:

• $75 per credit for credit courses, excluding college prep, which fall under the adult basic education;

• $1,125 for full-time term or $75 per week for vocational programs;

• $50 per credit for academic upgrading, which includes college prep and college prep English as a second language; and

• $350 for a full-time term or $87.50 for a part-time term in skills for employment, as well as English as a second language.

The college board had initially proposed doing away with any tuition fees on adult basic education programs as other colleges are doing. However, the Department of Education wouldn't agree to it. Instead, the college and department agreed to freeze the current tuition fees for those programs.

"We are pleased that we have been able to freeze the fees for academic upgrading and skills for employment programs," Weninger said in a statement.

"Over 30 per cent of our student population is enrolled in these programs."

Among the initiatives the additional funds will go to will be the hiring of a financial support officer this fall to assist students looking for financial aid.

"We know students are not accessing all the funding available," Weninger said, adding the school has among the lowest uptake on the Canada Student Loan program.

Ideally, the lack of Yukon College students getting student loans is a sign that the school's bursaries and scholarships are helping out students who need it, but Weninger also noted the possibility they might not be aware of the program.

It will be the job of the financial support officer to help students access funding programs so they can attend school.

Yukon College last saw a tuition fee increase of 20 per cent in 2003.

Prior to that, semester-based programs were hiked by 83 per cent in 1996/1997. In the four years prior to that, fees rose between 10 and 17 per cent annually.

Weninger said he's hopeful the coming years will see fewer sporadic "traumatic" increases.

New legislation introduced last week would allow for a policy on tuition fees that could lead to a more "rational, consistent approach" on the fees.

Under the policy, Weninger would like to see tuitions calculated using Yukon Bureau of Statistics information on the cost of living.

While that could mean a change in tuition fees every year, the increase would likely be less annually than the jumps the college has seen when it raises fees every few years.

In Alberta recently, Weninger read of one post secondary institution that follows the cost of living for its tuition fee calculations and saw an increase of three per cent for that particular year.

"I think that's very reasonable," he said.

The college has 700 full-time and 5,000 part-time students.