The problem with paying for post-secondary

Nothing is free in life; unless you live in Newfoundland.

Last year, the Newfoundland government eliminated the “loan” portion of post-secondary school funding and turned the entire amount into a grant. In last week’s issue, this segment addressed some of the issues with post-secondary education, including the fact that a distressing number of programs are essentially useless. I picked on Police Foundations as the low hanging fruit, but all you “gen-ed” students out there better get your burger-flipping skills up to date as well.

This week is about the money side of the equation. A substantial number of post-secondary students are there on borrowed money, a lot of it. Aside from crippling debt, many of these students also graduate no closer to gainful employment than they’d been before.

The Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) is designed to address financial barriers, which might prevent someone from attending post-secondary education. It’s a system of loans and grants that are intended to allow students who haven’t saved enough money to pay for tuition and living expenses. Unfortunately, OSAP is a complicated framework of seemingly contradictory rules and regulations that leave many graduates in a precarious financial state.

The framework for determining how much money a student is eligible to receive takes their parent’s income into consideration. It’s the equivalent of an 18-year-old trying to get a car loan and only getting half of what they asked for because their parents have a combined annual income that is over $80,000. It’s a bizarre system, which links your loan amount to your parent’s income up until you’ve been out of high school for over four years. This results in students seeking a bank loan for their education if their parents are unwilling or unable to pony up the cash. Just what every student needs, another loan.

Luckily for students there’s always the option of a part-time job, very part-time. Not only will a student be docked financial assistance if they work two full shifts every weekend, but they also have to calculate in advance whether this will be the case. In addition to being a bizarre kind of honour system, this clause essentially encourages students not to work too much or they’ll be penalized.

The argument is that OSAP is provided so that a student can focus on their studies, and working too many hours increases the chances of them failing out of school. In reality, students who are dropping out tend to be the ones who can’t be bothered to study or show up to class.

The repayment part of OSAP is a whole other can of worms. Graduating without a full-time job makes purchasing and owning a car impossible. Not owning a car can be a major barrier to obtaining employment outside of the graduate’s immediate area. Combine a minimum wage job with student loans and you have a recipe for disaster. And now for the shitty part.

The Repayment Assistance Program guarantees that a graduate earning under $1,600 a month won’t have to repay their loan or accrue interest for up to five years. A full-time minimum wage job pays $1,760 per month. Now you have a choice: you can either work a few hours less and have $1,599 per month to live on (well below the poverty line) or you can work full-time and pay about $300 per month on your loans bringing your income down to $1,460 per month (way below the poverty line). Essentially you’re taking home more money by working less. Thanks OSAP.

Editorial opinions or comments expressed in this online edition of Interrobang newspaper reflect the views of the writer and are not those of the Interrobang or the Fanshawe Student Union. The Interrobang is published weekly by the Fanshawe Student Union at 1001 Fanshawe College Blvd., P.O. Box 7005, London, Ontario, N5Y 5R6 and distributed through the Fanshawe College community. Letters to the editor are welcome. All letters are subject to editing and should be emailed. All letters must be accompanied by contact information. Letters can also be submitted online by clicking here.