REDUCTION SOUGHT

Dominion, Volume 26, Issue 98, 19 January 1933, Page 8

REDUCTION SOUGHT

Charge for LL.B. Degree COMMITTEE TO REPORT Representations were made by letter to the University Senate at its annual meeting yesterday by the Victoria <Ol- ■ lege Students’ Association and the Wellington Law Students’ Society to see it a reduction could be made in the tee charged for the degree of LL.B., £</</-> as the fee for the corresponding degrees in arts and commerce was 12/2/- and 11 1/- respectively. The senate declined to make a reduction immediately, but on account of some anomalies in the fees schedule a committee was appointed to make a report. . Mr. H. F. von Haast said that he sympathised with the law students. The reason given for the disparity between the fee for LL.B, and other bachelors degrees was said to be in one case one was a professional degree and in the other a cultural degree. He did not think that was quite sound. The B.A. to teachers was a professional degree. Mr. von Haast said that as honorary treasurer he wanted to get as much revenue as possible, but as a lawyer he wanted to help the law students. At the present time the university ought to see if it could make some reduction, say, to £d Mr''C. M. Gilray said that if the university reduced its fee for law, it wou.d have to do the same with medicine. Mr. P. Levi said that there were anomalies in the fees charged for bachelor degrees. There was a difference between the medical and law degrees, lhe former conferred the right to practice medicine, which was not the case with the latter. A man, on passing his LL.B, examinations, could be admitted to Practice without obtaining his degree. He thought that the fee ought to be reduced to £3/3/-, He understood that a great many students who had recently passed their examinations were unable to take a degree. liw LL.B, was not a professional certificate like some other degrees, and therefore there was not the necessity to reduce tees for other degrees if a reduction were made in LL.B. The pro-Chancellor, Hon. J. A. Hanan, concurred with the previous speaker. The schedule of fees was drawn up in good times when prospects were bright. (Now times had changed. Is it right that you should insist on the. same fees being paid under different conditions than those which obtained when the schedule was originally fixed?” he said. Mr. F. H. Bakewell said that comparison between law and medical degrees was not wholly fair. The medical course cost much more than law. Mr. F. A. de la Mare thought that to place handicaps on boys who were about to start on a career was a bad thing nationally and individually. He shptild like to see a revision. The vice-chancellor, Professor 1. A. Hunter, said that so far as the law students were concerned, the university would not be debarring them from earning their living at their profession. There were anomalies, he said. For instance, the fee for the degree of B.Com. was £1 1/-, which, under some circumstances, enabled a man to practise accountancy. Professor Huntpr thought it wiser for the question of fees to be considered as a whole. , , , The question was referred to the executive committee to report.