Student debt has skyrocketed in the last half decade. The average debt load of full-time students in Canada upon graduation is currently more than $25,000.

The debt accumulated by part-time students is an equally serious concern, but it is usually much less visible because part-time students have less access to student loans.

At the federal level, the Canada Student Loan (CSL) program currently offers little more than a “line of credit.” The interest on CSL loans to part-time students is charged immediately upon borrowing, rather than after graduation as it is for full-time students. On top of this, the average amount of CSL loans per part-time student has decreased in the last five years, while tuition continues to increase.

The CSL program states part-time loans is an aspect of the program that “has never been widely used.” And yet, the income of part-time students appears to be dropping.

At U of T in 1991, only 20% of part-timers earned less than $10,000. By 2000, that figure had increased to 73%. Few part-time students apply for the loans available to them, not because they don’t need to, but because they don’t know about the programs.

At the provincial level, students taking fewer than three credits are excluded from the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). The fastest-growing segment of the part-time population at U of T is made up of students who “drop down” from full-time status mid-stream. As tuition has gone up, this has become more and more common.

Students who “drop down,” however, find themselves in an even worse financial crunch since they no longer qualify for OSAP and have to start paying back the loans they borrowed as full-time students. This means paying both the principal and the interest while still in school.

Students did win a small victory on this issue recently with the extension of the OSAP repayment period from 90 to 120 days (i.e. to an entire semester). This allows students to change back to full-time status after one semester without going into repayment. Most who “drop down” to part-time status, however, do so for more than one semester, and this is most often a matter of necessity rather than free choice.

Due to being excluded from OSAP, many part-time students carry other forms of debt: massive credit card debt, lines of credit, even mortgages. These private loans have a much higher interest rate than government student loans.

Many students these days end up paying for their education twice over through interest payments. Since it takes part-timers longer to get through their studies, and because they must rely on high-interest loans, many end up paying back exponentially more.

The extent and impact of this “hidden debt” is a largely untold story. Reliable statistics for debt outside of government loans, especially for part-time students, don’t exist.

According to the Millennium Scholarship Foundation, which is just starting to study some aspects of credit card debt, all students are relying more and more heavily on credit cards. The average debt for a student holding one credit card is $900, for two cards $1,600, and for three or more $2,500. The average level of credit card debt overall is $1,500. We do not have an average for part-time students specifically, but it must be even higher than it is for full-timers, due to the differences in government loan access.

We do know that credit card debt is related to age, since the older the student the more debt s/he tends to accumulate. The average age of U of T part-time students is slightly higher than full-time undergrads (25 years at U of T), and the majority of mature students, (those returning or starting later in life) study part-time.

The other hidden factor is the amount of deprivation part-timers must face: going without adequate clothing, school supplies, childcare, even food, in order to complete their studies. And it is often the most economically and socially marginalized who find themselves studying part-time, such as single parents, those with physical or learning disabilities and women of colour. The drop-out rates due to rising tuition are proportionately even higher for part-time students than they are for full-timers.

Part-time students need better access to funding. OSAP eligibility is a start, but it is not a final solution, since OSAP leaves students with unmanageable and unnecessary debts. A real solution must involve freezing and lowering tuition, more debt forgiveness for those already burdened, restoring the system of non-repayable grants which used to exist in Ontario, or better yet, creating a universal, national system of grants for those in need.

U of T part-time students are needed to help put a human face on the debt statistics. Come to the APUS office in Sid Smith, room 1089 and sign the APUS “Debt Wall.” This display will record individual part-timers’ comments about their debt, both open and “hidden.” And the National Day of Student Action on February 6 will provide an ideal opportunity to tell the untold story of part-time debt.