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Hopeful expansion

The city's help could go a long way to get more students at Confederation College. Finding housing has been described as a Herculean for students coming to the college from other city's president Jim Madder said.
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Jim Madder looks at drawings of new residence buildings. (Jamie Smith, tbnewswatch.com)

The city's help could go a long way to get more students at Confederation College.

Finding housing has been described as a Herculean for students coming to the college from other city's president Jim Madder said. It's the reason the school wants to build up to four new residence buildings, the first two finished as early as next year.

Confederation College pays $75 per students in lieu of taxes. But because it plans to have a private owner for the new buildings, the new residences would have to be taxed. Council is being asked Monday, recommended by administration, to grant the college what it would pay the city in taxes, for the next 25 years. That would cut residence fees by $800 a year for the new 64-unit buildings.

"It allows us to be competitive with other northern colleges and attract more students," Madder said.

The school is losing an estimated 300 people a year to other colleges because it doesn't have adequate accommodations. What the city might be giving up in tax it gets back and then some by students moving into the city, spending an estimated $10,000 each every year.

"That goes through our community," Madder said. "They buy locally."





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