A new survey claims three-quarters of Canadian post-secondary students borrow money to get through school, yet many still struggle financially, a new study shows.
Making Ends Meet: The 2001-2002 Student Financial Survey, conducted for the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation by EKOS Research Associates, shows that students rely increasingly on government and private loans to cover their education expenses.
Compiling monthly budget information from a sample of more than 1,200 students nationwide, the study provides a snapshot of where post-secondary students get their money, what they spend it on and how much debt they accumulate.
The study showed that nine out of every 10 students over the age of 26 carry an average debt of $20,500 from government and private sources, according to the year-long survey of student income and expenditures.
“But if you take Quebec, their tuition rates are much lower than ours.” said Emoline Thiruchelvam, the Students’ Administrative Council vice-president education.
“Therefore, when Quebec students graduate, their debts are probably much lower than the average Ontario undergraduate student…. Also, government subsidies in certain other provinces are much higher than in Ontario for post-secondary education,” Thiruchelvam added.
The study also shows that 44 per cent of students have government loans, while 31 per cent borrow from private sources. According to the foundation, this means that 74 per cent of all students nationwide are in some form of debt.
The survey also showed that the age of a student affects their financial position. Students aged 20-21 face an average monthly budget deficit of $142, not including accrued student debt, while the average student experiences a $56 monthly shortfall.
Also, despite drawing heavily on multiple sources of non-employment income, students over 26 cannot meet their expenses, which are the highest of any age group of students.
Students spent two-thirds more on shelter and food (36 per cent) than they did on education itself.
Education was worth 24 per cent of all expenditures, the single greatest cost for students, followed by accommodation (15 per cent), transportation (12 per cent), food (11 per cent) and debt payments (8 per cent). The study also shed light on working students: two out of every three students works during the school year, earning $6,000 by working 19 hours per week. The study showed that students working more than 10 hours per week take longer to complete their degrees.
Making Ends Meet also showed that students’ monthly expenditures appear to be somewhat higher than current assumptions built into government student aid programs such as OSAP.
But critics of the study say it is a politically-motivated exercise. “The foundation has attempted to document the level of financial hardship faced by students, yet they fail to draw the obvious conclusion that increasing tuition fees, especially in professional programs, is the primary source of unmet financial need,” said Joel Duff, Ontario chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students.
“This is particularly dishonest because the survey relied on by the foundation demonstrates that tuition fees were still the biggest expense students faced.”
The CFS also questioned the study’s methodology. While Making Ends Meet claimed academic performance is not affected by student finances or employment, it also noted that almost one-third of the study’s participants stopped returning their surveys before the study ended.
“It seems logical that people who dropped out of school or who became overwhelmed with their combined academic and employment workload would most likely be non-respondents, thus skewing the correlation between academic performance and finances in the final results,” said Duff.
