The Canadian Federation of Students is pleased with some of the funding provided for post-secondary education in this year’s budget, but says core funding for MUN needs to be addressed.

The province is providing $40 million for a new Graduate Tuition Refund Program starting next year, and $5 million for paid work terms for students pursuing health care careers in so-called “hard-to-fill” areas.

Nick Keough says those are welcome initiatives but he wants to see more detail.

“We don’t know exactly which students would we eligible for that, or why its only for students in hard-to-fill positions, because from our perspective all students are to be paid for their work, it’s a human right to be paid for your labour.”

The provincial government is also providing $500 million in core funding for MUN and CNA, a slight increase on paper from last year, but Keough says “that’s definitely not enough.”

“Because the Tuition Offset Grant is now put in with the overall operating grant, we actually don’t know how much it’s increased by, if its increased at all or if the rest of it is just to account for the tuition freeze. We really don’t have the details in terms of how much money is going towards MUN and MUN needed a way bigger investment than this.”