Gary Coons

Bursaries for students pursuing health careers among programs getting axed

PRINCE RUPERT— The fact that the Campbell government has slashed the budget for student aid by $12 million will hurt northern students says North Coast MLA Gary Coons.

“It costs more to go to university when you are from a northern or remote community,” said Coons. “It costs more to travel to and from university and there are fewer opportunities for students to reduce their monthly rent costs by living with family.”

The programs that will be cut include the Permanent Disability Benefits Program, the Debt Reduction in Repayment program, the B.C. Loan Reduction for Residential Care Aide and Home Support Worker Program, Nurses Education Bursary, Health Care Bursary, Early Childhood Educator Loan Assistance Program, and the Premier’s Excellence Award program. “It’s shameful that local students like Shayna Scott, last year’s (2008-09) recipient of the Premier’s Excellence Award, will see doors close in their face with this last minute broken campaign commitment!” claims Coons (BC Liberal Election Platform: We will maintain this year’s higher funding levels for student aid.)

Coons is especially concerned because in order to hide the cuts until after the election they Campbell government delayed telling students the programs had been cancelled.

“A lot of students are going to be left dangling by this short-sighted and deceptive decision,” said Coons. “We are just a month away from school starting, and these students are only now being told they won’t be getting any help from the Campbell government. To be cutting student aid when students need to be paying for ever-increasing Liberal tuition fees, and when workers need retraining to get back to the workforce, shows just how out of touch this Premier is with students in our province!”

Coons said it is especially troubling that the Campbell government is choosing to cut programs designed to attract more people into the health sector at a time when the population is rapidly aging and more heath care workers are needed than ever. At the same time as this government severs valuable programs they knew that the number of students receiving and needing aid will rise from 53,000 in 2008 to 75,000 this coming year. This is a typical Gordon Campbell “welcome back to school’ announcement!

“It is already a constant battle for northern and remote communities to keep the doctors, nurses and medical technicians,” said Coons “Cutting bursaries that were designed to help people afford to get the skills we need to keep our hospitals and doctors’ offices running is completely senseless.”

List of affected programs:

Permanent Disability Benefits Program:

This program allowed student or former students who were or became permanently disabled during the lifetime of their B.C. student loans to apply to have their loans forgiven in full.

This program has ended.

Debt Reduction in Repayment Program

This program helped those who had exhausted all their B.C. interest relief time, who had their repayment period extended to 174 months, and were still unable to repay their debt due to low income and financial hardship.

This help is no longer available.

B.C. Loan Reduction for Residential Care Aide and Home Support Worker Program

The B.C. loan reduction program for residential care aide and home support worker students was designed to help students in Residential Care Aide and Home Support Worker Programs who had to borrow money for their post-secondary education. Under this program the provincial government reduced B.C. student loan debt by up to $2,500 for students who were studying with eligible programs to become home support workers or residential care aides.

Loan reduction will only be issued to students who graduated on or before March 31, 2009. No loan reduction will be issued under this program to students who graduated on April 1, 2009, or later.

Nurses Education Bursary

The province provides up to $3500 available annually to qualified applicants who meet the criteria, demonstrate financial need and are in a qualifying program of study of at least 4 months.

Funding for this program has been reduced so fewer students will receive this bursary.

Health Care Bursary

This provincial bursary program was established to train health-care workers in areas where the province is facing skill shortages, and to help B.C. health-care workers keep pace with changing technology and preventive care needs. Bursary awards ranged from $500 to $3,500.

No further bursaries will be issued under this program.

B.C. Early Childhood Educator Loan Assistance Program

This loan assistance program provided up to $2,500 toward outstanding B.C. student loans of new graduates of Early Childhood Education programs who were working in a daycare post-graduation.

This program is still under review.

Premier’s Excellence Award program

The Premier’s Excellence Award recognized the best all-round Grade 12 graduate in each region of the province, and encouraged talented and dedicated British Columbians to pursue advanced academic studies at British Columbia’s post-secondary institutions. Sixteen awards of $15,000 were distributed each year. There was one award for each of the 15 regions and one award for a student with a permanent disability.

This program has been discontinued.