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In stark contrast to the fervent anti-tuition hike movement that rocked this province a couple of years ago, students at McGill University’s school of dentistry have agreed to pay a $20,000 surplus fee to help finance the cost of the faculty’s new $18-million state-of-the-art facility.

However, as the first year of this creative new fiscal strategy got underway this fall, it seemed some first-year students misunderstood that the $5,000 they had agreed to pay was an annual fee — and now some are worried about maintaining this significant contribution.

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“The website did indicate the fee, but it was misleading to some students,” said Ryan Siciliano, president of the first-year class. “Many thought it was $5,000 and not $20,000. … Most first-year students find the $5,000 per year fee high.”

Could this be the start of a new trend in Quebec’s cash-strapped universities? The 415 students in the Université de Montréal’s faculty of dentistry have also agreed to pay $1,000 a year — starting in 2010 through next winter — to finance equipment upgrades.