New Brunswick college students who met with government and union officials on Wednesday to plead for a resolution to a labour dispute say the discussions didn't leave much hope their semester will be saved.

"I was hopeful things were going to get settled, until [Wednesday] when I met with both sides, and I have a feeling this could go on for quite sometime," said Katelin Dean, a student at New Brunswick Community College's Woodstock campus.

About 500 members of the Canadian Union of Public Employees Local 1251, which includes college custodians, corrections officers and human service counsellors, have been on strike since Jan. 10.

The dispute has forced the cancellation of classes at eight of the province's 11 community college campuses because of dirty classrooms and washrooms. The remainder are operating on half-day schedules.

More than 100 college students from campuses across the province met in Fredericton on Wednesday to demonstrate in front of the legislature.

The students have been pleading for a resolution to the labour dispute before the semester is lost.

But the union says a resolution isn't going to be reached with the current offer from the government, which Human Resources Minister Wally Stiles has said is final.

"The monies that are on the table right now are exactly what we want, but they're in the wrong place," said Louis Arseneau, president of CUPE Local 1251.

The union wants an increase of $1.12 an hour for college custodians to bring wages in line with custodians working in the province's public schools. It also says correctional officers working in provincial jails are the lowest paid in the country.

According to Stiles, the government's offer would see the salaries of custodial workers increase by 18.3 per cent to $17.23 an hour by 2011 and the hourly wage for correctional officers would go from $20.52 to $25, an increase of almost 22 per cent.

Stiles said the offer would also provide a 12.6 per cent wage increase for human service counsellors, taking them from $16.88 per hour to $19.01 in 2011.

"We need to bring that up to the beginning of the contract because we need to pay for groceries today," Arseneau said. "We need to pay for gas today. We need to feed our children today — not four years down the road."

The government has asked the union to put the offer to a vote, but Arseneau said that won't be happening.

The talks between the two sides have broken off.

Ready to quit, students say

The negotiations need to resume because students are contemplating dropping out, said Cynthia LeBlanc, president of the student council at the Bathurst campus.

"It's getting where students are considering going back to the job market or plain just not continuing their course at all," LeBlanc told CBC News.

Melissa Russell, a Saint John student, said she is also concerned she is soon going to be losing out on her education.

At the Saint John campus on Wednesday, students walked out of classes in protest over the mess and smell in the school.