As students in Toronto continue to pay through the nose for tuition, a smaller but equally significant transportation cost is often forgotten.  

Colleges and universities around Ontario have initiated partnerships with local transit agencies to get better deals for their students.  

Meanwhile, colleges in Toronto have failed to do the same for theirs. 

George Brown College (GBC) has a population of around 30,000 students who mainly depend on the transit systems for their daily commute to school. All three GBC campuses are in areas accessible by the Toronto Transit Commission (TTC).  

At present, the TTC provides a monthly post-secondary student transit pass for $128.15. This pass allows unlimited taps for the amount which would pay for approximately 40 regular trips. 

However, students feel that the pass is still expensive and is not so different from paying regular fare for the TTC. 

“Given the monthly student pass cost, paying for individual transfers or a ‘pay as you go’ approach works out to be more cost effective for me. Therefore, the discounted student pass is not effective for me,” said Cassandra Birch, a student at the St. James campus. 

She currently travels to school three times a week and does not have to travel for work. 

Rahul Sachdeva, a student at the Casa Loma campus, travels to school almost all week and uses the post-secondary pass.  

“Per month, you have to pay around $130, it is good because it has unlimited taps but still $130 every month is kind of hard. And we are students we can only do part time [jobs] so it’s kind of hard, of course,” he says.  

Colleges in other regions of Ontario offer passes for students that allow them unlimited travel for less than $150 a semester. 

Durham College provides u-passes for $147.25 a semester while others provide even better deals, such as Queen’s University in Kingston which offers a 12-month pass to students for $122.  

Angeline Nijmeh, director of education and equity at the Student Association of George Brown College (SAGBC) is coordinating with the organization to work on transportation equity for students at the college.  

“Transit is a big chunk of where our money goes to, especially at a commuter school like George Brown. Most students don’t have cars. There’s very limited parking anyways, and it’s costly. And so, I think if we are a commuter school, it’s important that we have affordable transit,” she said. 

Before the introduction of PRESTO card systems, the SA bought monthly passes at a discounted rate and distributed them to students first-come first-served.  

However, since then, no such measures have been put in place to help relieve students from the transit fare burden. Part of it may be due to the failure to build a partnership with the TTC. 

“They [other colleges in Ontario] are dealing with different transit services that are easier to work with. But for us we’re dealing with the TTC so that makes things difficult. I have tried contacting them with no luck,” Nijmeh said.  

TTC officials were unavailable for comment on this matter. 

Students believe that any sort of help from the college to reduce their transportation costs will help them.  

Deep Desai, a student at St. James campus says, “I used to live in London, Ontario. My [college] ID card was basically my bus pass. That’s really convenient. And it’s $150 for the whole semester, that is something I think colleges [here] should take up. Partner with TTC, I don’t know how that works. But yeah, I would really want to see that.” 

Desai lives in the far east-end of Scarborough and often uses the GO transit system too. 

GO transit currently offers student discounts of 40 per cent on all trips. Michelle Wei-Tiu, registration and audit coordinator at GBC, handles the processing of student discounts with the GO transit system. 

“The only responsibility of the college is to verify student’s registration; the discount basically is based on the provider. For now, we only have one transit agreement, that is with Go transit,” she said. 

While the college’s stance is that any availability for discounts would depend on the provider or an initiative from the student union, Wei-Tiu suggests that students apply for the various bursaries available if they are in desperate need of financial help. 

“We have the George Brown bursary as well as other bursaries on our website, that student can avail and can use the grant that’s provided for them to pay for their transit, or whatever they want to use. That’s the only thing that the college offered to students that I know of,” she concluded. 

Speaking as someone who was elected to provincial government, Spadina-Fort York MPP Chris Glover believes the college, SAGBC, and students should come up with a plan to inspire change. 

“This initiative really needs to be a partnership between the college, the administration and the students. I think the Student Union and the college would need to work together on this,” he said.  

“I think a survey of students would be an initial step so that you’ve got data and you can make a business case and then the administration and the Student Union going together to the TTC and to the city would help to move this forward,” said Glover. 

The TTC’s discounted pass for students may not be enough of a discount, especially in comparison with other transit systems in the province.  

Students feel the pinch of paying $130 every month but do not often realize that only Toronto is lagging in providing something more for them, and it may be entirely up to the Student Association to advocate for this and champion the cause.  

Whether it be an initiative to bring back the old system of providing discounted vouchers to students or taking an immediate step towards forming a partnership with the TTC, it may be time to take up the challenge and hopefully become the trend-setter amongst Toronto’s college student unions.