It’s good news for university and college students all over Ontario as Glen Murray, Colleges and Universities Minister, promised to make available 30% tuition rebates in time for the 2012 winter term. This month, over 300,000 college and university students are expected to start receiving refunds on their tuition.
College students will benefit from a rebate of $730 while each university student will get back $1,600 according to a CBC report. There is a catch, however. While this plan is said to benefit the majority of post-secondary students, the conditions appear to say otherwise. To qualify for these rebates, family income has to be under $160,000. Those students who are already enrolled in the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP), comprising half of the approximately 300,000 students “will be automatically be line for the rebates”, Murray states. Some will receive an automatic computer credit while the remainder while have to apply for these benefits online some time this month. For Murray, the government is “removing significant financial barriers for families who are under financial stress” in the province that has the highest average university tuition in fees in Canada at $6,640.
The Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), on the other hand, have found flaws in Murray’s policy. Renata D’Aliesio of The Globe and Mail points out that the tuition rebates favour pupils whose household income falls below a certain threshold, and part-time and graduate students do not qualify for the refunds at all. The CFS takes issue with this and is suggesting a reduction cut for all students. For those students that qualify, the rebates come at a time when undergraduates are desperately trying to find funds for the upcoming term and so while students are left out in the cold, others will be sighing a breath of relief.
What they don’t take into consideration
The matter of parental income being a major factor in one’s qualification for OSAP and tuition brings to mind a Macleans .article written by Josh Dehaas in October of 2011. In his article “How parental income can kill your student loans”, he discusses the practicality of using household income to measure how small or large of a fund an applicant should get. Dehaas notes that the common expectation is for parents to assist in the coverage of their ward’s tuition fees but what if the reality does not match up to that hope? Using anecdotes from university students, Dehaas shows how the system is flawed and puts students who seem to be better off by virtue of their parent’s socioeconomic status, into a difficult situation. First of all, students such as Ben Whitney (mentioned in the article) who seek to establish some amount of independence are constrained by caps on student loan funding because of how much their parents make.
The system also fails to take into consideration family dynamics in which some parents choose not to support their child at all, even though they have the means to. What’s more is that a household income as a means of financial stability may not take into consideration all the expenses that families have to account for in their daily lives. Funds may be tied up in other endeavours, used for unexpected maintenance fees of home and family life. In the end, the government’s plan may be doing as much damage to middle and upper class families as it is helping those who rely on these programs to get by.
