FUNDING POST-SECONDARY EDUCATION IN BC (2002 - revised 2006)

There is a significant need in BC businesses for a well-educated workforce, to keep pace with the world economy.

Unfortunately British Columbians are being denied access to proper post-secondary education due to financial restrictions. Students are willing to pay for their education, but require loans to get the training they need to get working again, and to live while they are attending as a full time student according the institutions designation.

The current student loans system is inadequate to meet the needs of our population and the changing demographic of students choosing to return to school.

The amount of funds available to students is partly based on the number of weeks of a course. There are a prescribed number of weeks that will be financed, and a predetermined number of hours per week that will be financed. This is detrimental to school’s ability to creatively deliver training to students (for example, more hours per week and fewer weeks, which has students working more quickly, or fewer hours per week, more weeks, allowing students to work more during training). This makes much education inaccessible to students due to financing problems and it does nothing to address the plight of working adults who are highly leveraged by mortgages, car payments, taxes and the financing obligations of their children’s education (the 18-22 year-olds). The very students who can afford to pay back student loans, (working adults with higher-than-average wages and good credit histories) are being denied access to education based on both provincial and federal student loan policies.

Students frequently are denied access to funds because their unemployment situation reflects poor credit, or the funds available under the current formulas are simply inadequate to meet the needs of the student to pay for a course, or to contribute to their living expenses while attending training or, simply because they earn more than $10,000 per annum.

THE CHAMBER RECOMMENDS

That the provincial government:

1. provides improved accessibility to student loans, changing the restrictions which may apply to those with poor credit (or who are at maximum levels of credit but have a good credit rating) where appropriate due diligence measures have been taken;

2. increases the amount available for student loans so that it reflects the rising costs of education in both the public and private sectors and the increased numbers of students seeking to upgrade their skills or education levels to become more productive workers;

3. creates a funding formula change that ensures that the amount available for a student loan not be tied to the number of weeks of a course or program(or the number of instructional hours per week); and

4. a change to the dependency restriction on student loans, reducing it from four years to two.

5. a pool of $50,000,000 be established annually as funding for working adult students in British Columbia to access educational opportunities regardless of length of program, or hours of instruction per week, or type of institution (must be accredited), providing they attend as a full time student.