Gov’t policies leading to student financial burden, claims CFS

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By: Emeka Ibeh

The provincial government has done a poor job of mitigating student debt loads, which has led to increased financial burdens on students, according to a report from the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS).

The report Private Student Debt in Canada: Ten Year Trends from 2000 – 2010says the percentage of students with large debt ($25,000 or more) at graduation increased 33 per cent among college graduates, 24 per cent among those with bachelor’s degrees, 37 per cent among those with master’s degrees, and 40 per cent among those with those with doctoral degrees.

This increase is happening because tuition fees in Ontario are higher than they have ever been and it is forcing students to go into debt, both through charging payments to credit cards and bank loans as well as through accessing government loans, according to Rajean Hoilett, Ontario chairperson of the CFS.

“We’ve seen chronic under-funding of post-secondary education that has seen Ontario become the most expensive province in which to study or access post secondary education,” said Hoilett. “Our students are also graduating with ballooning debt loads, into a very unstable job market. So students are forced to take on both public and private debt in order to be able to finance their education.”

Hoilett also added that students have very few opportunities to finance their education while they are in school because most are working minimum-wage jobs, and are trying to pay for other expenses simultaneously.

Students in provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador, however, have been successful in lobbying consecutive governments to freeze and reduce tuition fees. In 2007, the provincial government implemented an up-front needs-based grant program. As a result, student debt in Newfoundland and Labrador has decreased significantly.

“The government needs to commit to making post-secondary education more accessible and affordable on a whole, and they can do that by reinvesting into the sector, to be able to see reductions in tuition fees, but also looking at provinces like Newfoundland and Labrador, which just turned their loans system into a grants system in working towards making education more affordable for students.”

Bilan Arte, CFS national chairperson, also feels that the government should focus on universal access to education and that it should re-invest in education so that students aren’t taking on these burdens to fund post-secondary institutions.

“It’s important that students are getting involved in sharing their stories about not being able to find ways to fund their education and also not being able to both study and work in order to afford their education,” said Arte.

“So it’s really important that students get drawn in with their student unions, getting involved with the Canadian Federation of Students or reaching out to their local MPP’s to continue to have this issue on their radars and to make it a provincial issue.”