Ukrainian students to be treated as Canadians for tuition in Sask.

They had to flee their homes when a war broke out in their backyard and they decided to come to Saskatchewan.

Now the provincial government is extending a helping hand for displaced Ukrainians who want to continue their education here.

The province will be stepping in to pay the difference to allow Ukrainian students who settled in Saskatchewan under the Canada-Ukraine Authorization for Emergency Travel (CUAET) to pay domestic tuition rates instead of much higher international rates.

At the University of Saskatchewan, the cost per credit unit for Canadian students is $229.80 while the cost per credit unit for international students is $827.28.

Victoria Knyhnytska came to Saskatchewan with her family in December and is about to graduate from high school in Wawota.

“It’s really good news for us because we came from war, not (as) tourists or something like that. We are very happy to hear that and I think everything will be fine,” she said.

Both her parents are dentists and Knyhnytska wants to follow in their footsteps. This change will save her a lot of money as she said the cost for an international student is about $35,000 and for domestic would be $7,000.

There are 11 Ukrainian families who’ve settled in Wawota and the committee there heard from students like Knyhnytska and reached out to their MLA.

“We were trying to decide what we were going to do. Should we establish a foundation? Should we establish some sort of grant or a scholarship for graduating students?” said Wawota Mayor Kevin Kay. “We just started asking the questions and figuring out how we can resolve this issue.”

He said this news is huge because it will allow the committee to allocate money to help students.

Gord Wyant, Saskatchewan’s advanced education minister, said students reached out to several MLAs to talk about how tuition was a barrier for them to continue their education.

“So we took it upon ourselves to look at the whole situation in terms of some of the other things we have done to support Ukrainians who have come here to flee the war in Ukraine. We thought this was what we needed to do to ensure that they had the best opportunity to further their post-secondary education here in Saskatchewan,” said Wyant.

The minister said the government wants to encourage Ukrainians to stay and raise a family in Saskatchewan and post-secondary education is a key part of that. But that wasn’t the only reason for the change.

“We also want to provide opportunities, I think, for those that want to return to Ukraine, who want to return and build their country, and so having educational opportunities will help those that want to return, and we think that that’s important as well,” said Wyant.

The help will be offered to those students who’ve settled in the province. Wyant said any who come to Saskatchewan from another province will need to be here for at least a year before they would be considered.

The province is budgeting about $400,000 for the first year.