4 Feature September 14, 2005 + Over the Edge Canadian Students Stuck with the Bill The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations built a Wall of Debt on Parliament Hill last fall. MEGAN THOMAS CUP OTTAWA BUREAU CHIEF OTTAWA (CUP) - Canadian students are less likely than their Dutch, German, Swedish, Australian and American coun- terparts to get a grant to help pay for university, Canadian University Press has learned. An Educational Policy Institute study done for the federal government in 2003 shows Canada gives out fewer educational grants - money that doesn't have to be re- paid - than comparable nations. The docu- ment was obtained through an access to information request. This means Canada's post-secondary students ate forced to rely much more heavily on loans. Acadia University student Shannon Cushing knows this firsthand. She's $30,000 in debt and it’s keeping her up at night. Cushing, 20, is a third-year psychol- ogy student. Next month she will have a baby. In November, she starts paying off her loans. “T'm scared out of my mind about what Iam going to do about that,’ Cushing says. “My income will be a grand total of zero dollars per month, starting in May.’ Cushing guesses het loan payments will be about $600 a month. To save money, she’s moving to Moncton, N.B., and will finish her degree through correspondence courses. Even so, she will have to take out mote part-time student loans to make it through. The Educational Policy Institute study shows that for every three-and-a-half stu- dent loans in Canada, there is one grant available. Of the seven nations studied, only the United Kingdom ranked worse with a one to four-and-a half grant to loan ration. The study also concludes that Canada is “atypical” because it doesn't focus grant programs on low-income students. Because of her debt, Cushing isn't find- ing the post-secondary education system all that accessible, And she's not alone. The Canadian Federation of Students has a digital debt clock that counts in real time what students across the country owe the government. At press time, that clock read $10,936,278,900, but accumulat- ing interest causes the last three digits to change so quickly they are tough to read, According to one Liberal senator, the solution is federal legislation that lays out a nationwide plan for post-secondary edu- cation. “T know firsthand the difficulties stu- dents are having, and parents are having, in providing what I think is one of the most fundamental rights for all Canadians,” Senator Elizabeth Hubley, a mother of six from Prince Edward Island, says. Currently, post-secondary education is funded through a social transfer from the federal government to the provinces. Each province decides how much of the money goes to its colleges and universities. A federal act that creates national stan- datds for student aid and accessibility, Hubley says, could make sure students like Cushing can afford to go to univer- sity - in all provinces. The act would also clarify which parts of education provincial or federal governments are responsible for to ensure those standards are reached. Hubley would also like to see a House of Commons committee review the system in Canada. She says such a review should look at countries like Ireland that essen- tially provide free tuition to all students through study grants, rather than loans that have to be repaid. The senator would like Canada to arrive at a system where grants or waivers make tuition free. This would make Cushing's university experience a lot more pleasant. With rent of about $350 a month, Cushing says her living expenses are easily managed. It’s the MEGAN THOMAS / CUP $7,500 a year in tuition that breaks the bank. Acadia University tuition is among the highest in Canada and Cushing says she's considered switching schools to save money. But she's hard of hearing and re- lies on the small classes and high level of interaction with professors that Acadia is known for. “I found that the environment here was really important to me,’ Cushing says. Hubley admits students like Cushing may have to wait quite a while before free tuition becomes a reality. But she says just having the discussion raises public aware- ness about the need to change the system. But the kind of federal intervention Hubley is calling for isn't likely to happen, says an official in the federal department that deals with post-secondary education. Federal legislation governing post-sec- ondary education would step on provincial toes, says Robert Sauder, the acting direc- tor of the Learning Policy Directorate, a branch of Human Resources and Skills Development Canada. “The idea that the federal government is going to unilaterally create a so-called Canada Education Act ... I could imagine the provinces would have some significant resistance to it;’ Sauder says, in a phone in- terview from his office in Gatineau, Que. ‘The federal government has a leadership role in post-secondary education, Sauder says, meaning it's responsible for generat- ing discussion about how barriers to post- secondary can be lowered. He says it's also responsible for working with the provinces to figure out how federal and provincial governments can collaborate in certain ar- eas, like the Canada student loan program that is funded federally. But for New Democrat MP Alexa Mc- Donough, cases like Cushing's show that the federal government's idea of leadership needs some tweaking. “Te’s also obvious that there has been no vision for education in this country,’ Mc- Donough says, during an interview in a hallway of Parliament. McDonough, who is the NDP educa- tion critic, says her idea of leadership is a federal plan for post-secondary education, complete with a financial framework and enforcement mechanisms: for provinces that don't put enough resources into their colleges and universities. “People say that would be hard to do, well yes, but it’s also important and worth doing,” McDonough says. The system has been in decline since about 1993, says McDonough, when then-finance minister Paul Martin cut social programs to address Canada’s crip- pling national debt. The debt management has been a suc- cess, with the federal government keep- ing budgets in the black for the past eight years, This leads McDonough to wonder why Martin, now prime minister, isn't re- storing post-secondary education. “That's what he did about the deficit. Why doesn't he apply the same vigour to rebuilding our post-secondary base in this country?” McDonough asks. She says it would take about $6 billion from the federal government to bring core funding for colleges and universities to pre-1993 levels, McDonough also says it's critical to create an extensive grant system based on financial need to deal with stu- dent debt, something she says is especially crippling for low-income students. Despite the substantial funds it requires, post-secondary should be an easy issue for government to move on because the public already understands the importance of it, McDonough says. All there is left to do, McDonough says, is to set targets and create a timetable.“To not do that, it’s not only devastating to stu- dents and their families, it's devastating to Canada's future,’ she says. However, Sauder says there are no plans for federal targets or timetables that go beyond the current student loan and edu- cation savings bond programs the federal government already administers. “There is no federal department that is working quietly to produce a big frame- work for the government or for the nation at this time,’ Sauder says. Sauder says he knows there are inequali- ties in the system. But he says students with staggering debts that keep them from making major purchases like houses when they graduate are more of an exception than the rule. Sauder says 80 per cent of students pay off their loans on time. “The system works for them,’ Sauder says. They get the money they need. They pay it off” The Ioan system is based on a cost mi- nus resources formula. This means that students can qualify for loans because they come from low-income backgrounds or because they enrol in high-cost profes- sional programs like law or medicine. According to one student at Carleton University who will amass about $10,000 in debt by the time he finishes his master’s degree in political science, the system does work. Jordan Smith, 23, says he was raised with the philosophy that you pay your own way in life, He says it’s perfectly reasonable to graduate with some debt because it’s a trade-off for a better hand later in life: He Study shows less grant money available here than in comparable countries hasn't given much thought to how he will pay off his loans when he graduates next year, but he's not worried. “If that means you have to live thrifty for a few years, that's okay,’ he says. Smith says it bothers him when some students say the government should be responsible for footing the entire bill for post-secondary education. The percentage students pay varies from province to prov- ince, In Ontario, the province with the most colleges and universities, students pay an average of 44 per cent of the cost of their education. “Everyone feels so entitled,’ Smith says. “T disagree with higher education as a right. It's a privilege.’ Smith says he thinks the current level of government subsidy for education is fair because otherwise the burden could fall disproportionately on taxpayers who may not be using the post-secondary system. “I don't want to be this parasite on so- ciety,’ he says. Smith says he disagrees with_student lobby groups that he says are always de- manding more and wont admit that their demands could mean cuts to other govern- ment programs. ; “If it was free, they would want to get paid for going here,’ Smith says. Smith also disagrees with the idea of tuition freezes as a way to keep education affordable. Instead, he says tuition should go up slightly each year to keep pace with inflation. “Inflation doesn't freeze, profs’ salaries don't freeze,’ Smith explains. “If they low- er tuition, (universities) will become like Zellers.’ But James Kusie disagrees. He's the na- tional director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, a lobby group that focuses its efforts on the federal govern- ment. Kusie says tuition hikes have created an accessibility crisis and have made student debt unbearable for many. The average tuition at Canadian universities has more than doubled in the past decade, jumping from $2,023 in 1993 to $4,025 in 2003. ‘The student aid system needs more flex- ibility built in, Kusie says, so it can respond to these kinds of increases. “The biggest thing is to get the money to the students that need it the most,’ Kusie says, in an interview in his Ottawa office. Kusie says universities and colleges need more funding so they can provide services without jacking up-tuition. The best way to do this, he says, would be a social trans- fer payment from the federal government that the provinces would have to spend on education. This, Kusie says, is one way the federal government can play a leadership role in post-secondary education without stomp- ing on provincjal jurisdiction, Be it dedicated transfer payments, a fed- eral act to create national standards, or just billions in cash for the system, Shannon Cushing hopes the government is listen- ing to students who find post-secondary education isn't working for them. “I'm of the opinion that if the govern- ment wants us to grow up to become eco-: nomically contributing adults, they should make getting there accessible,’ Cushing says. There are loud calls for change, but does everyone agree there is a crisis afoot?