DAY 1: Given the crazy academic schedule I have had lately, I have had a hard time trying to prepare for this campaign. This morning, it dawned on me that I would not have time to grocery shop until late in the week, so I would have to cost the groceries I currently have. Today I ate three meals: cereal, pasta, and pizza. Pretty standard. Here is the issue: with one meal, over 3/4 of my allowance of the day was taken up (slices of pizza). I was forced to do this today as I am on a tight deadline for a paper and I could not go home to make dinner. It worked out that based on my crude math that I barely made it under the $7.50, despite my small servings. And my friend was generous to give me a free muffin–which was great! Man am I glad that I did not get that hungry today though!

The Cord News Article

Food For Thought: Day 1

So, as the first day of this campaign winds to a close, I can’t help but think about how exciting an adventure this is bound to be.  The video blogs have started to go up, and we’ve all been busy chatting away with the media while eating our $7.50 worth of food a day.   During the course of the campaign I will be foregoing meat on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, which should help keep costs low.  Today started off with a couple pieces of toast with peanut butter, and some orange juice and milk to keep me going.  I packed up my delicious lunch – a peanut butter and banana sandwich, and an apple.  Water is easy enough to come by on campus, so I don’t think today cost too much.  Dinner was quite simple – a box of Kraft Dinner and some home made salad.  All in all things don’t seem very difficult so far, but then again I guess this is only day one!  I’m excited to see what day two has in store, and there’s some exciting stuff coming up, so stay tuned for more on the Food For Thought trail.

Andrew

Western Gazette Article

Monday, March 8, 2010

So today started off late as I slept through my alarm so by the time I was up and ready to go I didn’t have breakfast until 11:30am.  It was more of a brunch and I just had some pasta with a tomato cream sauce with diced tomatoes.  I used a quarter of the fucilli in a package that I got for $1.72, so the pasta cost $0.43.  I used half a can of sauce which comes to $1.43 and $0.50 for half a can of diced tomatoes.  So the total cost of that meal is $2.36 and included 2 servings of grain products and 1 serving of vegetables.  I had two glasses of water with it and 2 more glasses of water throughout the afternoon.  I then went grocery shopping and despite my plans to make a casserole tonight I really wasn’t hungry when I got home so I just ate a Chef Boyardee Spaghetti and Meatballs which was $1.80 and includes 1 serving of grains and 1 serving of protein.  I then had a glass of milk, which was $0.62, and a glass of V8 juice, which was $0.55.  These drinks got me a serving of dairy and 2 servings of vegetables.  I am going to have another glass of water before bed.  So my total cost for the day was $5.33 but I only had 3 servings of vegetables, 3 servings of grains, 1 serving of dairy and 1 serving of meat.

Sarah Baker

Kingston Whig Standard Article

Louise Brown – Education Reporter, Toronto Star

It’s not just about missing her Starbucks London Fog tea – although at $4.50 a cup, half her new budget would be used up.

Nor is it the submarine sandwich she’ll have to skip as she races from class to work; on $7.50 a day, the only sandwich Rachel Crane can afford is home-made.

“How many cucumber sandwiches can I eat before I wither away?” asked the fourth-year Brock University student, a Georgetown native.

Crane is one of four Ontario undergraduates who will spend the next three weeks eating on just $7.50 a day, the amount the province’s student aid program provides for food. In daily blogs and twice-weekly videos, they hope to show the need for Ontario to raise its student loan ceilings.

To cut costs, Crane will seek one of the $25 emergency grocery vouchers Brock’s student union offers cash-strapped students; this year it has upped the number of vouchers to 105 from 75 last year because of the recession.

“What I’ll really miss is the fresh fruit and vegetables you need to be healthy,” said the 22-year-old business major. “OSAP assumes students should live below the poverty line, and that’s not good, especially for students who need the energy you get from healthy eating,” said the fourth-year student.

The Food For Thought campaign – a sort of OSAP diet that starts Monday, was launched by the Ontario Undergraduate Students’ Alliance to highlight the fact Queen’s Park has not raised student loan limits in four years.

“They did a great thing four years ago but it hasn’t been enough – especially not when poverty reduction is a big part of this government’s strategy,” said Alexi White, the alliance’s executive director.

The Ontario government overhauled student aid in 2005, boosting loans by $358 million a year by 2010 and introducing the first non-repayable grants for low-income students in more than a decade.

Now, as post-secondary institutions await the government’s next multi-year funding plan, White warns OSAP’s annual living allowance for a single student living away from home is only $12,540 a year – below Ontario’s poverty line of about $15,200 for rural areas to $22,171 in big cities.

“The government also expects students to be able to save $2,170 from summer earnings – even though the student unemployment rate last year was 16.4 per cent,” said White. He noted too that students who earn more than $50 a week during the year to supplement their loan have that amount clawed back from their loan payments.

“Campus food banks are on the rise and it’s not fair that the government assesses student need at an unrealistically low level,” he said.

Among the other “Food For Thought” bloggers;

• Andrew Beach is a theology and political science major at the University of Western Ontario who will take part in the campaign by making lots of pasta to take to campus – cheap carbo-loading – and shopping at No-Frills;
• Queen’s University music student Sarah Baker will blog about her efforts to cook her own food, from muffins to casseroles, and forego chips and chocolate;
• Political science major Nick Gibson of Wilfrid Laurier University plans to use his parents’ Costco membership to buy groceries and avoid fast food.

“My aunt gave me a cook book recently – I guess I’ll start trying out recipes.”

Canadian Student Survey

TORONTO/CNW/March 8 – Due to record unemployment, Ontario students are deeply concerned about finding the resources necessary to pay for their education, says a report released today. The “Canadian Student Survey: Summer Work and Paying for Post-Secondary Education” examines the strain of high youth unemployment rates, how students fund their education and how cash limitations affect their ability to pursue an education.

“Record levels of student unemployment have taken a heavy toll on Ontario students’ bottom line and they are turning to the government for help,” said Dan Moulton, President of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance. “Over 225,000 students rely on the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP), but it’s just not meeting their needs.”

OSAP requires each student to contribute a minimum $2,710 of summer income toward his or her education. This is based on a student working 30 hours a week over a 16-week summer and is imposed on every student, regardless of whether he or she was actually employed.

Survey participants reported saving an average of only $1,500 from their summer jobs, more than a thousand dollars less than OSAP assumes. Moreover, 30% of the students who reported working last summer worked less than 20 hours a week, and these underemployed students were more likely to be from Ontario.

“During a particularly difficult summer, thousands of students were unable to earn OSAP’s arbitrary minimum contribution and did not receive enough government aid to fully cover their costs,” added Moulton. “It’s crucial that the provincial and federal governments revisit the summer contribution to ensure OSAP is there when students need it.”

The “Canadian Student Survey: Summer Work and Paying for Post-Secondary Education” was a bilingual, multi-institutional survey conducted on university campuses across the country in the fall term of the 2009-10 academic year. It was commissioned by a partnership of student alliances across the country, including the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA), Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA), Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS) and Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations (ANSSA).

The report is the first of three to be released this year, and can be found HERE.

Entitled “Food For Thought”, the experiment will be co-ordinated by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA).  Participants will blog and video blog on their experiences at www.ousa.ca/foodforthought.

The OSAP need assessment uses a standard living allowance for every student living away from home. It totals $34.72 per day, of which $7.50 is allocated to food costs and the rest is meant for shelter, public transit, and miscellaneous expenses. Over the course of a year, this living allowance is $3,000 less than the poverty line for a city of over 100,000 people.

“Given that OSAP expects students to live below the poverty line, I expect our participants will have a great deal of difficulty eating a healthy, balanced diet,” said OUSA President Dan Moulton. “I hope the results of this experiment will convince the provincial and federal governments to fix the broken OSAP assessment formula and end the institutionalization of student poverty.”

Taking part in the experiment are students from Wilfrid Laurier University, Queen’s University, the University of Western Ontario, and Brock University.

A number of organizations dedicated to poverty and social justice issues have pledged their support, including the Council of Canadians, Canada Without Poverty, and university food banks across the Province.

They have created intro videos about themselves, and I have posted them below. Visit www.ousa.ca/foodforthought/ for more information about the campaign and the participants.

Rachel's Intro Video

Sarah's Intro Video

A second proposal contrasts the first in that it calls on the government to continue to allocate research grants on the basis of the quality of the applications. This plan would encourage “natural” differentiation so that schools would be rewarded for quality research and would invest in those areas where they excel. By allocating funding based on excellence, institutions would only be able to fund their finest research programs and would be encouraged to abandon those areas where they do not excel. Over time, universities would become specialized in very specific areas, but would still preserve the traditional approach of blended teaching and research universities.

The issue of differentiation is significant to undergraduate students because it would alter the current approach to baccalaureate education. Institutions that strictly teach would not be able to offer undergraduates exposure to research opportunities, which may hinder their ability to continue on to graduate studies. If universities are forced to focus their research to only a few areas, it may begin to impact the quality of undergraduate education. Despite a traditional divide between teaching and research, many institutions are attempting to bring more research into classrooms to enhance the undergraduate experience. This would be more difficult to implement without strong research programs. Furthermore, removing top researchers deprives students of professors that excel in the application of their field. It is possible that the university system could become antiquated, with an emerging disconnect between curriculum and the latest research.

Above all, undergraduate students need to be involved in discussions surrounding differentiation of any nature because of the impact it will have on their education. So far the discussion has been too focused on the sustainability of the system and reducing the costs to government, with little or no regard for the impact of differentiation on the quality of undergraduate education. This must change.

From March 19-21, student leaders from across the Province will have an opportunity to discuss the various forms and consequences of differentiation during OUSA’s Spring General Assembly at the University of Western Ontario. We look forward to an exhilarating conversation.

-Adam Zabrodski & Robert Woodrich
Vice Presidents University Affairs
Alma Mater Society of Queen’s University & University of Windsor Students’ Alliance

OSAP expects students to live below the poverty line

For a single student, living away from home, the OSAP living allowance provides a total of only $34.72 per day for food, shelter, public transit, and miscellaneous expenses. This amount is constant across the Province and does not recognize the varying costs of living between communities.

Over a year, this living allowance would add up to $12,540 – about $3,000 less than the Low-Income Cut-Off for a city of between 100,000 and 500,000, such as Kingston, London, St. Catharine’s or Kitchener-Waterloo. The Low-Income Cut-Off, or LICO, is widely considered a proxy for a poverty line.

For cities above 500,000 people, such as Toronto or Ottawa, the situation is even worse. Students in these cities are asked to live $5,000 below the LICO.

OUSA recommends immediately increasing the living allowance and building in geographical diversity so that no student in Ontario is asked to live below the poverty line.

For a detailed breakdown of the OSAP living allowance, click HERE.

For more on the Low-Income Cutt-Off, click HERE.

The OSAP need assessment does not take into account the full cost of tuition, books and supplies

Each year, colleges and universities in Ontario must report the costs of tuition, books and supplies to the government. But rather than use these amounts to assess a student’s need, OSAP employs a variety of maximums to cap the amount of government financial aid a student can get.

For instance, students in the arts or sciences are assessed a maximum of $600 for textbooks in a normal, two-term academic year, despite the fact that textbook costs in some programs can go well above $1,000.

Similarly, students in graduate and professional programs are assessed a maximum of $4,700 for tuition by the Province, even though these students often pay thousands more. Conversely, the federal government, in its own separate need assessment, includes the full cost of tuition for students in all programs.

OUSA recommends that both the federal and provincial governments include the full cost of tuition, books and supplies, as reported by each institution, when assessing a student’s need.

For more on the OSAP books and supplies maxima, click HERE.

The OSAP maximum has not been increased in four years and continues to prevent students from receiving adequate financial aid.

For many years, the maximum financial aid given to a student through OSAP was $110 per week. Former Premier Bob Rae recommended an immediate increase to $140 per week in his landmark 2005 report Ontario: A Leader in Learning, and the government heeded his advice. Mr. Rae also recommended a second phase of increases, to $175 per week, but five years later students are still waiting for the government to implement this change.

Without a further increase to the OSAP maximum, changes to the OSAP living allowance or the need assessment formula will provide no benefit to high-need students who already receive the maximum allocation.

OUSA recommends that the government immediately increase the OSAP maximum to $175 per week, as recommended by Bob Rae, and tie the maximum to the rate of inflation.

OSAP expects students to save $2,710 in summer earnings for their education, no matter how much a student actually earns.

The summer of 2009 saw the worst student unemployment levels since Statistics Canada began collecting student unemployment data in 1977. Last August, student unemployment reached a whopping 16.4%.

But the OSAP assessment formula assumes a minimum contribution that each student is expected to earn over the summer months – $2,710 for a 16-week pre-study period. This contribution is expected regardless what a student reports earning when they apply for OSAP.

In a summer that saw record student unemployment, thousands of students were unable to make this minimum contribution but could not receive additional government aid to fully cover their costs.

OUSA recommends relaxing the minimum contribution in years with above average student unemployment.

For more on the minimum pre-study contribution, click HERE.

The federal and provincial governments spend millions of dollars each year on tuition and education tax credits that do next to nothing to improve access

The federal and provincial governments together spend over $1.9 billion on tuition and education tax credits each year, far more than they spend on need-based financial aid. Unfortunately, tax credits tend to benefit wealthier families rather than those with the most need.

Research from the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation found that the average tax credit claimed per young person in the top income quartile is two times that of the average tax credit available per young person in the bottom income quartile. Moreover, the tax credits are claimed at the end of the academic year, long after students need assistance to pay for tuition, books and rent.

Recognizing that these tax credits do not increase access, the McGuinty government promised in its 2007 platform to eliminate the credits and reallocate the money to up-front grants. Students are still waiting for to see this promise fulfilled.

OUSA recommends immediately eliminating all tuition and education tax credits at both the federal and provincial level and reallocating these funds to the Canada Student Grant Program and the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant, respectively.

For more research on education tax credits, see the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation report HERE.

The approach of developing practical and pragmatic solutions that largely fit within those assumptions has served the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance well since its inception. However, the organization has also prided itself on being a thought-leader within the sector that works to develop new and innovative ideas on how to improve the education of our students. It was with this spirit that Justin Williams (VP Education of the Federation of Students) and I felt it was important to step back and look at the post-secondary education system in a more global context. The primary objective of the study we launched over two years ago was to assess if our assumptions about how the mechanisms to recover the cost of post-secondary education were working for Canada, and more specifically for Ontario, and if there were other models or elements of cost recovery that should be considered as policy suggestions in the future.

Canada has much to be proud of with respect to its post-secondary education system, but it is without question that the future success of our country will rely in part on the current decisions made about how to evolve and improve the sector. Canada spends over $34 billion annually to fund the post-secondary education system and, as a percentage of gross domestic product, spends amongst the top three countries in the world both publically and privately on the sector. With that significant investment, the country has had the highest tertiary education attainment rate amongst OECD countries for each of the last four decades, with an almost even split between university and college education. The proportion of the population with tertiary education has risen over 4.0% annually since 1998, while those with less than upper secondary education has fallen by an annual average of 3.6%. However, the system is under pressure to continue expanding to meet the demands of a changing economy, while governments from coast-to-coast are under budgetary pressure and institutional costs are rising faster than the revenue to support them. Tuition and debt loads are growing as the cost burden shifts to students, quality metrics are slipping, and statistics suggest that not enough progress has been made to improve access for under-represented groups.

Our study sought first to outline the cost recovery model currently in place for both the university and college system in Canada and Ontario, and some of its implications. The study then conducted a review of the cost recovery model for post-secondary education system in 37 countries, with a focus on democratic countries with market economies or those that are of particular interest due to their expanding education systems. If the purpose of the study was to make sure we were not missing the forest for the trees, so to speak, then the definitive conclusion of the report is that it is a big and complex forest out there. Finishing a project as broad as this one, that has involved five different contributors often in five different cities, has been a challenge, and I am very excited to share our initial findings and implications at our next General Assembly in a few weeks’ time. Through the in-depth examination of global systems, many very interesting patterns and models have emerged, and I hope that the conclusions of this report are only the beginning of a longer discussion at OUSA about how to continue to improve the post-secondary education system in Ontario for our students for years to come.

– Sam Andrey
Federation of Students, University of Waterloo