Image Credit: CFJC Today

By Jill Sperling

Provincial Grant

BC Access Grant answers the call of post-secondary students

Feb 19, 2020 | 5:01 PM

KAMLOOPS — College and University students across the province have been calling for an upfront, needs-based grant program for years— and now they have one.

The BC Access Grant was announced in the Provincial Budget Tuesday (Feb. 18).

Starting in the fall, low- to middle-income post secondary students will be eligible for the BC Access Grant.

“It’s super exciting for students here at TRU,” said Leif Douglass, campaigns coordinator with the TRU Students’ Union. “B.C. was the only province that didn’t have a provincial need-based grant system. Basically, this is a grant that is targeted to students that need the financial help to go to school, so this will help a lot of students that maybe were on the edge of enrolling. That could really push them to maybe enroll in school and complete their education so that’s super exciting for students.”

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Eligible students will automatically be assessed for the BC Access Grant by StudentAid BC.

The grant program complements the Canada Student Grant and between both students in a degree, diploma or certificate program will receive up to $4,000 a year.

“We’re really happy with that amount,” Douglass said. “There’s always tweaks to be made. I think we’ll sort of have to wait once this rolls out and look at some of the data and see sort of what the impact is on student enrollment, participation, how it’s helping students and there might be tweaks to make in the future.”

The grant program is among a number of initiatives taken on by the BC Government to increase the affordability of post-secondary education.

Last year, the interest charged on BC Student Loans was eliminated and strides were taken to lower the cost of textbooks by increasing open education resources.

“I think they’ve tried to deliver some things on the post-secondary level, absolutely, but as with most of their promises, they seem to have fallen short on a lot of things,” said Kamloops-North Thompson MLA Peter Milobar. “We haven’t seen tuition frozen, it’s still rising at these institutions.”

Douglass says the provincial needs-based grant program was a specific ask by the students of this province.

“We’ve heard from people in government, from the minister that she’s really happy to hear from students,” he said. “She’s been listening to students, and so she’s been hearing that message from students and I think that’s been really the key thing around this announcement.”