Finally, some good news.

An interesting article appeared in today’s issue of the Montreal Gazette. In, “Students teach province a valuable lesson”, it is reported that as many as 80,000 Quebec students could be eligible for a refund for being charged too much interest on their student loans.

The government of Quebec changed the Quebec Student Loans Programme’s grace period of repayment from seven months to zero months. So, rather than a period of time before students had to start paying back their student loans, they had to start paying once the semester finished. The class-action lawsuit was launched in the names of those students who, unaware of the changes to this policy, were charged interest for the seven months after their last semester.

Harry Dikranian launched the lawsuit after he finished his degree in law at McGill. The suit was for $30 million.

This was the ruling from the Supreme Court of Canada:

“Supreme Court Justice Michel Bastarache, who wrote the ruling in Dikranian's favour, said the loan agreement is a contract between the student and the financial institution. As such, he wrote, the government violated the rights of the students by changing the interest obligation in the contract through a legislative amendment.”

While the details vary somewhat, it is unfortunate that the class-action lawsuit launched almost exactly a year ago by Andrea Hassum and Dan Roffey wasn’t as successful. After almost a year of going through the system, it was ruled that the issue of illegal ancillary fee collection is a political matter and students are technically third parties in the transaction between the colleges and the government. Because the ancillary fee protocol is a policy rather than a regulation (which would have carried the rule of law with it), the case was thrown out essentially on a technicality.

That being said, this ruling will likely bode well for any possible future class-action lawsuit that may be launched by students in Ontario, or anywhere in Canada. Justice Bastarache’s ruling sends a strong message to provincial governments that they could be financially liable for changing rules of student financial aid programmes without including students in their decision.

Student debt causing doctor shortage?

The National Post recently ran the article “Student debt dictates who enters medical field” which paints a shockingly honest picture of the societal dangers of high-cost post-secondary education programs like medicine.

There is a significant body of research that points to the fact that rising tuition fees are a barrier to participation in post-secondary education. Especially problematic are the once-deregulated fees paid by students in professional programmes, (though this is not to downplay the fact that other students, like international students, are also treated like cash cows via enormous tuition fees[1] [2] or provincial health fees).

Generally, the justification for high tuition fees is that students will make their money back in reams throughout their working careers (false). Applying this logic to the field of medicine however, pushes graduates who are keen to pay off their massive student debts, to choose jobs and work locations based on pay alone.

Medical graduates are not choosing to be family practitioners despite the growing need. They are leaving rural areas and even the country for work rather than providing their much-needed service in smaller towns. To some, this is an outrage—young professional medics who have milked society for its tax dollars to get them through school and then abandoning it for more money in other jurisdictions. But the sad reality is that it was their society, influenced by the baby-boomer generation and out-of-touch politicians who chose funding continuous tax cuts with unsustainable tuition fee increases. Not to mention that this will further the cycle where only the sons daughters of doctors go on to become doctors and lawyers themselves, thereby narrowing the accessibility of the field medicine.

Until Canadian society comes to grips with the fact that funding tuition fee reductions is an important tool in strengthening society, medical professionals will continue to disappear out of desperation to live a life unsaddled by debt.

Other Links
http://www.policyalternatives.ca/documents/National_Office_Pubs/2006/Mending_Mediare.pdf
http://www.albertadoctors.org/bcm/ama/ama-website.nsf/AllDoc/74866DED8CF4801E87257103005494EF/$File/add_janfeb06.pdf
http://network.nationalpost.com/np/blogs/fullcomment/archive/2007/10/22/brian-day-s-diagnosis-the-president-of-the-canadian-medical-association-explains-how-to-fix-our-health-care-system.aspx

Baby boomers need to take responsibility for new graduates’ angst

A recent study out of the University of Alberta[1] shows that students experience depression and angst up to seven years after they graduate from university. While this is a serious issue that should receive more attention, responsibility of this problem should not be laid at the feet of youth and students. For example, the Globe and Mail completely ignores massive student debt and lower wages than their parents, as an obvious source of this depression and frustration.

Instead, Globe author Tralee Pearce points to children returning to their parents’ home as the reason for high levels of depression—as if young people hate their parents that badly. Common sense would suggest that economic factors are the real force sending young graduates home to their parents. As a result of this omission, the Globe’s underlying thesis is that parents must exercise tough love, and evict their “boomerang” kids before depression sets in. Make no mistake, this is generational warfare. Baby Boomers paid a fraction of what students today are forced to pay for an education. It’s unsurprising that unprecedented debt levels might be causing new graduates’ angst.

In addition to the need for more research, the Baby Boomer generation must take responsibility for advocating tax cuts over reducing the costs of post-secondary education. Most importantly, attention needs to be paid to the lower starting salaries, fewer job prospects and high debt levels that recent graduates face. This will be the only way that we can have honest debate on the source of their new graduates' angst and growing feelings of dispossession.

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[1]Galambos, & Krahn, H. J. 2008. Depression and anger trajectories during the transition to adulthood. Journal of Marriage and Family, 70, 15-27