With the rise of student unemployment and the decline in the availability of merit-based scholarships, more students are looking towards financial aid in the form of loans and bursaries.
Reports on Statistics Canada show a student unemployment rate of 20.9 per cent for July 2009 — a 7.1 per cent increase from July 2008.
“A study done by the Royal Bank of Canada found that 43 per cent of new college and university students and 35 per cent of those already in school feel they can only stretch their money as far as Christmas,” Chris Wilkins, founder of Scholarships Canada, said.
The Millennium Scholarship program, which provides students with approximately $13 million each year in merit-based awards, will also come to an end this fall.
In addition, Wilkins mentioned there has been a lot of concern among students about their finances, based on an increase in traffic on the Scholarships Canada website.
Karen Pypstra, Western’s student financial services team leader also noted an increase in financial aid applications for the current academic year.
According to Aase Houser, director of student awards and financial aid at the University of Windsor, student loan applications at the institution have increased by approximately 30 per cent.
Houser added the major reasons provided by students requesting financial aid included a loss or reduction of parental income and lack of summer employment.
While financial aid in the form of bursaries or loans has become scarce, Wilkins noted the number of scholarships on the website has not decreased substantially and requests from scholarship administrators have increased.
“There’s a lot of interest in helping students — organizations want to provide money so students can afford to go to college and university,” he added.
Tanya Blazina, a spokesperson for the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities noted an increase in applications received by the Ontario Student Assistant Program: “While OSAP application numbers are changing daily at this point, there has been an increase of 15 per cent in the number of OSAP applications received by the Ministry so far this year.”
As stated by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance, 226,476 students needed OSAP for their post-secondary education last year.
As part of its funding formula, OSAP requires each student to contribute a minimum amount of summer income towards his/her education — even if the student was unemployed. OUSA President Dan Moulton mentioned OSAP deducts a minimum of $2,710 from the loan a student receives.
“OSAP’s minimum contribution from summer employment is unfair [...] [they assume] that students have those jobs […] or will be able to make that amount over the summer,” Moulton said.
OUSA along with the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations is working towards having the required summer income contribution removed for the upcoming school year.
Moulton also added that Western should consider more ways of providing financial aid to students.
“I think that our administration has the ability to put pressure on the government into [removing the minimum summer contribution],” he said.