Canada's Budget 2010 does not recognize students' needs, says major student organization

Ottawa, ON – Budget 2010 is making intelligent investments to help students find their way into post-secondary education, and assisting new graduates in finding employment, but has announced little for existing students facing over $500 million in lost income, due to the recession last summer, and are having difficulty paying for college and university.

$20 million for the Pathways to Education program is a valuable investment in “early intervention” that many researchers believe can help Canadians that have not historically attended post-secondary education in high numbers to attend college or university - low-income Canadians, recent immigrants, aboriginal Canadians, and youth whose parents attained low levels of education.

Investment of $8 million in the Indirect Costs Program will also help lower the costs of doing research at universities; these costs are passed on to students through higher tuition. Further, an additional annual investment of $32 million for the federal research agencies is tremendous in a time of recession.

“Unfortunately the federal government did not recognize the needs of students that are currently facing a cash and credit crunch due to last year’s recession,” said Arati Sharma, National Director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, “Students lost $500 million in income last year due to high unemployment but there were no new investments in the summer jobs program, no increases in the Canada Student Grants Program, and no changes to the student loan system so students can pay the bills they are facing today.”

Budget 2010 also included one-time funding of $30 million in wage support for Career Focus, a program to help businesses hire recent college and university graduates. It also announced up to 140 fellowships for recent graduates of doctoral programs of up to $70,000 per year for two years to do research in Canada.

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) is a non-partisan, not-for-profit national student organization composed of 25 student associations, representing over 300,000 students from coast to coast.

For more information please contact: Jillian Flake, Public Relations and Communications Officer CASA Tel.: 613-236-3457 ext. 224 (c) 613-868-6605 E-mail: casacomm@casa.ca

March 7, 2009

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