By Liam Radford
BELLEVILLE – Students will be walking out of 14 colleges and universities across Ontario at noon on Wednesday, but Loyalist students won’t be participating.
Scott Rook, the president of Loyalist’s student government, said that the college’s students will not be participating because a walkout would conflict with too many student life events happening that day, he said. The student government is the body helps to organize student activism on the Loyalist campus.
The student athletic awards, the spring awards ceremony and the Chill Out Cafe in the Shark Tank pub are taking place Wednesday, Rook said.
QNetNews couldn’t find any students planning to walk out at Loyalist on Wednesday.
The walkouts are over changes that have been made by the provincial government to OSAP and ancillary fees for postsecondary students. Ancillary fees, which pay for many school clubs and student groups, will become optional. The changes to OSAP will decrease the number of grants to students and increase the number of loans, which have to be repaid with interest. Free tuition will no longer be available for any students whose families make less than $50,000, and no grants will be available to students from families that make more than $14o,000 a year.
Student activists looking to organize protests are encouraged to contact the Loyalist student government.
“All you have to do is reach out to me or reach out to student government,” said Rook. “Students can just do it themselves. You don’t need the stamp of approval from student government. However, if it’s a great cause we would love to be involved.”
QNetNews will be attending one of the walkouts at Trent University on Wednesday.
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