Student debt remains a major issue facing post-secondary students across Canada.
UNBC student, Melanie Anderson says in her case, the numbers are piling up.
“Already in 2 years I have accumulated 30 thousand dollars in debt and when I finish it will probably be around 50 thousand.”
Anderson adds student hunger is directly related to student debt.
“We’re eating pot noodles or hitting the food-bank on campus to try and make ends meet or at least try and get to the end on where your next loan is going to be paid in it’s a cycle that will continue as long as we are underfunded.”
Newfoundland and Labrador made history this month as the first province to eliminate student loans in favour of a non-repayable grant.
Anderson adds while that seems like a good start, Canada is still behind it’s European counterparts.
“Countries like Scotland where you get free education, Denmark any of the Nordic countries have the most productive societies, they have top earning wages, free health care and they have the lowest crime rates.”
Under the new system a four year undergrad student at Memorial University in St. John’s will have just under 15 thousand dollars in debt this year, compared to 26 thousand in 2003-04.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government started eliminating student loans last August, a move expected to cost them 50.6 million dollars over the next five years.