By: Sam Normand
Loyalist students won’t have as many options for financial aid after the Ontario budget was announced Tuesday.
An Ontario based student advocacy group calls the budget decision to cease funding for student support “a betrayal of our generation.
“It’s just ludicrous that we’re paying the highest tuition fees in Canada here in Ontario. Sitting in the largest class sizes with the least access to professors. It’s like our quality is diminishing,” said Sandy Hudson, chairperson for the Canadian students federation Ontario. “Based on the record of this government the cost has increased significantly and it’s a betrayal. It’s a betrayal of our generation and for students.”
The provincial budget calls for wage freezes for public sector workers, doctors, and sweeping reforms to government pension reforms. The budget aims to reduce the provincial deficit by $1 billion by next year. Education and healthcare sectors remain largely untouched, but the budget does cut funding to student support programs.
Among those programs cut will be the Ontario Work Study Program, as well as several bursaries such as the Ontario Special Bursary and the Dr. Albert Rose Bursary. Loyalist College previously received $79,000 per year for the Ontario Youth Work Study program.
“The cuts to all the programs equals about $100 million,” said Hudson. “That particular program catches an envelope of $15 million.”
Hudson said that schools already have an obligation to fund work-study programs. She said that as a result of more and more dependence being placed on the tuition set-aside fund, there soon wont be any money left.
“We can expect to see over the years that this program becomes eroded to the point where it just doesn’t exist,” says Hudson. “This is going to have a huge effect for students who can demonstrate financial need who aren’t having their needs met by OSAP or bursaries.”
Hudson said that the dissolution of the Work Study program would have a negative affect on students.
“We have a situation in this country where youth unemployment is higher than it’s ever been. Work study positions were kind of like a measure where students who need the jobs the most could get them,” she said. “Now we have a situation where those jobs are disappearing, and looking out into the world of other jobs there’s not many jobs for youth.”
While the loss of these funds will not force these programs to shut down, it will complicate things, said Joanne Farrell, awards officer at Loyalist College.
“We have 1200 to 1500 students apply each year for bursaries,” said Farrell. “Of those, I can accommodate around 250. We don’t have enough for all of them. Without government funding it will definitely slow things down.”
“Now, rather than give us that bursary money in the budget here that we handle, they’re telling us to take it out of the tuition set-aside fund,” says Pearl Vani-Hill, a financial aide officer at Loyalist College.
The tuition set-aside fund is created by taking 30% of each years 1-2% tuition increase and placing it aside for use in student support.
However, the set-aside money is receiving more and more pressure as a result of receding government funding, said Vani-Hill.
“The government guaranteed that no student should be refused school because they can’t afford tuition and books, so you have to apply for OSAP. If OSAP gives you money but it’s not sufficient they set out this formula where they send us a list of students who are eligible for this student access guarantee. So we have to take that out of that set-aside money, so it dwindles it,” she said.