For the first time in OUSA history, two DoRPAs will blog simultaneously! As Sam Andrey, your new DoRPA, and I (Paul) work together to transition him into the role, it has given us a great opportunity to do some thinking about where we have been and where we might be going from a research and policy perspective. Thus, I will write the first part, and Sam will respond in the second.
Paul
It is probably appropriate for me to spend a bit of time looking at where we’ve been. While it has already been discussed on this website and blog at length, I think that the recent changes to student financial assistance have real implications on our policy and advocacy work. For at least the past five years (and in some cases longer), OUSA had been advocating strongly and seriously for the modernization of OSAP. In fact, if you look here <http://issuu.com/ousa/docs/ousabudgetsubmission2010> and here <http://issuu.com/ousa/docs/aprovinceofknowledge> you’ll see examples of these demands from this year.
Now that the government has finally doubled the income exemption in OSAP and made the six month non-repayment period a true grace period by making it interest free, OUSA can shift some of its focus to other areas that require serious and immediate attention. Don’t get me wrong, there are still important changes that need to be made to OSAP, not least of all a reworking of the needs assessment formula used to determine how much assistance a student will get, to be better in line with the federal formula. However, there are issues that pertain to quality and supporting student success that are very pressing, but have always come second to the immediate financial pressures students on assistance faced.
Thus, the most recent budget has opened a small amount room to begin a more serious dialogue on better supporting teaching in our universities for example. There can now be space for a broader discussion about student support services, and the crucial role they play in having students persist from the beginning to the end of their degree and achieve academic success.
As I move on to new challenges, it will be incumbent upon the home office and new steering committee to try and figure out how to best bring this issues forward in the constructive and purposeful way that OUSA always does. And, in that spirit, I pass the torch to Sam to talk a little bit about the policy decisions that are upcoming for the 2010-2011 year.
Sam
As I settle into the office and get further “into the weeds” of OUSA’s policy and research, I am becoming even more excited about my new role. The General Assembly held at Western a few weeks ago really laid out what the summer is going to look like – namely re-writing our policies on student financial assistance, early outreach, and ancillary fees.
The last student financial aid paper was 94 pages, and I have little doubt that the 2010 version will be even longer. I think each re-write of a long-standing policy is an opportunity to re-think and renew our ideas on the subject, and I think this is especially important for SFA. As Paul mentioned, the recent government announcement on OSAP reform allows us to turn the page on a few of our long-standing recommendations and begin to develop new educated solutions for the coming years. There was a great deal of excitement about the Australian model of deferred tuition at the most recent General Assembly, which may fit into the SFA discussion but will require long-term thinking and critical thought.
The government’s continued interest in a new Reaching Higher plan should allow OUSA an opportunity to share its vision for the sector. Thought and work has already begun on the government’s areas of focus, namely international students, system expansion, on-line learning, and credit transfer, and OUSA will have to continue to stay ahead of these topics. Developing new policy solutions to achieve the goals of our student success paper will be important, as will continued dialogue and thought on tuition, funding, and access. However, as always, the direction and priorities of OUSA will be decided upon by the students that we are lucky enough to be working for.
