Outrageous Student Loans

When I was in grade 12 I felt really pressured by teachers and other adults to go straight to University to get a post-secondary education immediately after high school. 

So at 18, moving out from my parent’s house for the first time, from the country to the city on my way to becoming a lawyer. 

The Student Loan they offered me was very small as they claimed my parent’s income was too high to offer me anything more. It covered my tuition and had $2,000.00 left over after buying the books. Let me point out here that at this time my parents were working 1 for about 10$/hour and the other was a seasonal worker: a lumberjack (does anyone seriously believe lumberjack still make money these days?). 

So of course I needed to get a full time job to pay for my living. I got a job at Subway, it was a 24h store and eventually my boss coaxed me into working over night shifts. 

I never had time to study or do my homework. My grades were all over the place depending on whether my class was a morning class (2 complete failures) a noon hour class (average of B- and C+) or evening in which I got an A- and an A+.

I got smart and quit after only 1 semester to work and save money to go back one day hopefully in the future. Best decision of my life. 

Once upon a time…

The years following the Second World War saw a gusher of public funding for the country’s universities. Such was the depth of federal and provincial government support for post-secondary education that fees were set at nominal levels. Governments seriously began talking about scrapping tuition fees altogether.

Newfoundland and Labrador actually did that briefly in the late 1960s.

Those funding gushers of the 1960s and ’70s, however, gave way to complete policy reversals in the ’80s and ’90s as governments sought to cut their share of post-secondary spending and demanded that students and their parents make up the difference.

What it would have cost for a Law Degree (approx.) (4 years + 1 bachelor’s degree [usually 3 or 4 years])

• Tuition: approx $5,000.00 / semester X 14 semesters = $70,000.00 
• Books: approx $1,500.00/year X 7 years = $10,500.00
• Rent: approx $450.00/month x 84 months = $37,800.00
• Food: approx $200.00/month  X 84 months = $16,800.00
• Transportation (bus fare) $45.00/month X 84 months = $3,780.00
• Health & personal care: approx $200.00/ month X 84 months = $16,800.00
• Miscellaneous (for phone, internet, etc.) approx $200.00/month X 84 months = $16,800.00
• TOTAL COST: $172,480.00 (or $24,640/year)

The Average Canadian Income per year working full time: $31,500.00 

(University of Victoria)

Struggling Students: How Student Loan Recipients Are Making Out

• 62% of college graduates aged 21 to 35 still have debt
• 39% said it would take 10 years or more to be debt free
• 43% used credit cards to pay tuition and 33% are still in debt
• 53% say higher rates will have a “major impact” on their ability to pay
• 29% miss payments occasionally or regularly
•44% say the debt made them delay buying a home
•28% say the debt made them delay having children
•33% say the debt made them move in with their parents
• 25% had to postpone or cancel graduate school attendance

Read more

In recent news, students in Quebec are protesting an outrageous tuition fee increase. Appreciatively 20,000 students are planning strikes in an attempt to halt the government’s plan to almost double tuition fees. 

The CBC seems to be misrepresenting this conflict but here is the video for you to watch.

Education should be free to us tax payers. We should not be paying for our army to invade Afghanistan, support Israel and help form sanctions against Iran and Syria. Our taxes should not help fund a pipeline to the southern United States. Our tax money should go to serving the people and that includes healthcare, education, public safety (and not police tyranny as witnessed at the G20 Summit in Toronto) and public utilities such as roads and power generators. 

I believe the government of Canada is doing this on purpose. They are pushing us into debt straight from the bud. Right after we leave high school, a lot of us never having worked before or live out on our own they force us to pay these outrageous fees in order to attain a higher education necessary to get a career, as the system is built that way. (Often, even with a college or university education, finding a job in your field can prove extremely difficult). 

This enormous debt caused by post-secondary education, teamed with the debt that will most likely be acquired by obtaining personal loans, credit cards, mortgages and other miscellaneous bills is only made worse by the fact that we live in a Capitalist society that thrives off of our being consumers; they are constantly bombarding us with advertisements, subliminally making us feel like we want to pay through the nose for useless things like Tim Hortons Coffee, Wendy’s Burgers and Molson Canadian Beer. 

WAKE UP AND SMELL THE CORRUPTION!