Postsecondary on an empty stomach: the rise of student poverty in Canada

It would be comforting to think that a slight dip in Canada’s economy has led to the situation many postsecondary students are in: struggling with poverty. Unfortunately, many working within postsecondary education feel that the factors at play are much more complex than that. It’s more than just waiting for the economy to get better: experts say that substantial change is needed to fix the problem of student poverty in Canada.

Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) external executive Andrea Eggenberger feels strongly that there are at least two major factors at play. She says the issue has two main factors.

“One is that education has become so expensive,” she says, “and two, that minimum wage is very low; it’s below the poverty line.”

Eggenberger says that the minimum wage is far from what is required for students living in the Greater Victoria area to be able to always make ends meet. She stresses that “it’s so vital for people to just be able to pay for their education, and if tuition was lower, and minimum wage was higher, people would have to work a little less to maintain their college experience.”

Camosun College VP of education John Boraas agrees that external factors are key to explaining why students find themselves struggling more so now than in the past.

“I think it’s probably reflective of general society and I think we are a microcosm of what we are seeing out in our broader community,” says Boraas, “and it seems that there certainly used to be a larger number of safety nets for all members of our community, and Camosun is reflective of that. Certainly, student aid is available, but people are living more and more in the margins. More and more of our students are working multiple jobs, and all of those things are indications of people being closer to the edge.”

Hunger and education

The starving-student stereotype is well established, but whether or not students are living on the edge of poverty while they go to postsecondary is up for debate. Michael Waglay is the program coordinator for the Beyond Campus Food Banks project, addressing food security for Canadian postsecondary students: he says that the first campus food banks appeared in 1991 at the University of Alberta. Now, according to Waglay, there is a food bank on almost every campus.

“So we have to look at what happened between those periods,” he says. “I think it’s pretty clear that, if you look at the numbers, tuition has gone up 238 percent since 1991, at the same time that federal government funding has gone down 50 percent.”

Waglay says that there are many factors at play when considering student hunger as an issue. He points to the job economy, for starters, saying it’s not very good for students right now.

“In fact, we’re at about 20 percent youth underemployment, and I believe that is a record for this country. So, it has to do with broader issues in the economy. Housing costs have gone up, which is another economic issue. It has gone up 17 percent from 2009 to 2012, and, again, students and young people pay more than what is considered affordable for housing. Many choose to be housed and have to scrape together food, rather than be homeless and eating. Food ends up being the variable cost that people pay.”

Camosun College ombudsperson Carter MacDonald says that the issue of student food security is prevalent here on campus.

“I would say that, easily, 30 to 35 percent of the students that I deal with have serious financial issues,” says MacDonald. “I have gotten involved with some students that have gotten into such desperate shape that they literally don’t have money for food for the week. Although it is not my role to lobby on behalf of anything, on a couple of occasions I have made it known to the student society that there is a student in desperate shape, and the student society has been wonderful; they’ve come through with some food vouchers in order to assist the student.”

Waglay insists that charity, however, is not the ideal way of addressing what he describes as a systemic issue.

“In terms of roots, I would say it’s about priorities, it’s about government policies, it’s about campus policies, and what we are doing is to raise awareness about the scale of this issue, and to get people to not accept that charity is a way of dealing with this problem,” says Waglay. “Because clearly, the charities already cannot sustain an increase in numbers, and also, it’s terribly unjust to force students to rely on charity in a land that has enough food and has enough wealth to provide for them.”

Simka Marshall, chairperson of the Canadian Federation of Students-British Columbia, says that the starving-student stereotype is “actually a very real thing.”

“It’s often a diet of ramen and water, or mac and cheese,” she says, “because when it comes to that time in the semester when it’s time to pay your fees and it’s thousands of dollars, it’s really hard for a student to get by to cover the high cost of tuition fees on top of all the other living fees and be able to afford their next meal.”

Working for change/spare any change?

According to Camosun College employees, the CCSS, students, and student advocates, student poverty is a complex set of issues that requires a comprehensive set of solutions. Camosun College’s Boraas says that there are pressures when there are fewer jobs out there and students have less money to spend.

“We know that tuition is growing, and that all of those things do create more pressure, and the result of that is that there are students who are at the absolute margins who are struggling the most. We try to focus our bursary opportunities on those students, we are trying to create more part-time programming so that students can more easily work while going to school. All of those things we are trying to do, and they underlie our value of accessibility, and provide an experience that they can afford.”

First-year automotive mechanics student Richard Robson says that he feels that the tuition fees for his program were reasonable; he says that his main difficulty is finding a job while attending college, but also admits that he’s “picky” about where he works.

“I’m trying to find an auto job somewhere, but no one is hiring,” he says, “and if they are hiring it’s full time, and not part time, which is the only downside to it.”

First-year sheet metal student Brittany Anderson says she found it hard to come up with the amount of money that her course costs, but feels that it is worth the potential financial hardship.

“For what you get out of it,” she says, “you are definitely going to be guaranteed to get a job afterwards.”

The CFS-BC’s Marshall points out, however, that the reality of students making substantial sacrifices is no rare occurrence in BC. She says that she sees students having to work three jobs to pay their way through postsecondary.

“Students are working three times more than they had to back in the ’90s to be able to cover all the costs of living, and food, and school itself,” she says. “One of the main contributing factors to that is how much more students are paying for a postsecondary education. We’re seeing students having to take on thousands of dollars of debt, where you’re paying incredibly high interest on top of that. That high amount of debt is keeping our students in BC in the cycle of poverty.”

The price of education is something all students must deal with in some way to access postsecondary, and the extensive barriers to having adequate funding are an integral part of student life, according to many working on advocacy in the area of student poverty.

Camosun College financial aid advisor Viviane Siddall feels the student-loan program delivers the support that is intended, although, she points out, “there haven’t been living allowance increases for a number of years.”

“The program is intended to be a supplemental program,” she says. “However, there is always room for more money in a student’s life, so in terms of it being adequate, students are resourceful and will often work part time and do what they can to supplement the student loan that they are getting.”

Despite the realities of student poverty and the resulting financial burden of attending postsecondary, Marshall says getting involved can help bring about positive change. “Two major steps that someone could take is first going to squashthesqueeze.ca and signing the petition to lower tuition fees, eliminate interest rates, create a grants program, and increase institutional funding. Those are all linked together and that campaign targets student debt, and that would be a great step towards breaking that cycle of poverty so that students won’t have to struggle to pay for school. The second thing would be to check out the Fight for Fifteen campaign, which is a BC Federation of Labour campaign to increase minimum wage to $15 an hour, and while $15 an hour is not a living wage, it is still significantly better than what we are getting paid now for minimum wage.”

A college with heart

In the seven years that Carter MacDonald has served as ombudsperson at Camosun, he has seen many powerful examples of the compassion that Camosun employees incorporate into their everyday work. MacDonald recalls a dramatic series of events close to the holiday season years ago that showcased that an institution can still have a heart.

“We had a student, a single mom, and it was not long before Christmas. She was obviously distressed, and was talking to one of the student services employees, and all of a sudden she lost it, and grabbed the employee by the hair, and pulled her head down on the desk. Another employee came to help, and the student pushed the rolling chair back, and both of the employees fell back on the floor.”

But this confrontational situation did not end in legal action or the end of the student’s academic career. MacDonald says it took a dramatic turn in another direction.

“Out of all of that, we had the counsellors do a debriefing session, and the vice president, the president, all showed up. Everybody took it very seriously. The employee who was initially assaulted went out of her way afterwards not to press charges but to raise funds for that young student and her child so they could have a good Christmas.”

As someone who has been a key stabilizing factor in many of the conflicts that take place at Camosun, MacDonald feels strongly that “there are many areas where Camosun College can be seen as an institution with a heart.”

“I think that comes from the people of the college, as opposed to the college as an educational institution,” he says. “The generosity of spirit of the people who work here has an add-on effect, and of course, that has an add-on effect for students who are experiencing financial difficulty and poverty.”

John Boraas, acknowledging that financial hardship is a reality for many students, hopes to make it known that there are options for those struggling at postsecondary.

“We do have emergency loans that students can use to help them through those tough spots,” he says. “There are definitely many examples, and as you are pursuing your educational journey, and circumstances arise that make you feel like you should quit, please see financial aid, please see our other service areas like aboriginal education, please see counselling. All of those people know where services and supports are to help you through those tough spots and provide some advice.”