XN000022-1973-06-15 — Page 5

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Friday, June 15, 1973

SIXTY PERCENT OF UNIVERSITY STUDENTS

TO RECEIVE FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE

The Secretary of the University and Polytechnic Grants Committee,

Hr. S.F. Bailey, said today that some 60 percent of the students at the two

miversities would be receiving financial assistance by the time the new tuition fees are fully operative in 1978.

Speaking at a luncheon of the Kowloon North Rotary Club, Mr. Bailey

said that already the percentage of the total student body who were assisted

under the student finance scheme had risen from its original 33 per cent in 1969 to 54 per cent during the current academic year,

He added that grants awarded under the scheme now averaged $1,245 a year for each of the 2,967 students assisted in this way, while interest-free loans provided to 3,196 students averaged out at $2,890 each.

"Moreover the way the scheme is organised we can change the figures

whenever we want to," he pointed out. "We already feed in a cost-of-living

element into the loan allocations. We can raise or lower the amounts according

to the students' actual resources.

And whenever the fees change we can run

this into the calculations too, and go on providing the assistance actually

needed whatever happens to the fees.

"It is because of this that we can say, quite categorically, and have been saying for some time, that no student who really cannot afford the new

fees in full will have to pay the new fees in full, and those who cannot afford

them at all will not have to pay them at all.

"The only