Majority of Students Concerned About Making Ends Meet

OTTAWA, March 8 /CNW Telbec/ - The majority of students across Canada are increasingly 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.

"Students are clearly worried about making ends meet, largely due to historically low levels of student unemployment during the past summer and through the current school year," said Arati Sharma, National Director of the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations. "We are particularly concerned about how cash constraints might affect students from lower-income backgrounds."

The report notes that despite strong efforts to find full-time summer employment, nearly one-third of students surveyed reported that they were only able to find part-time employment during the summer. As a result, students managed to earn a median of just $3,200 from May to August, and were able to save less than half of that total.

The report also noted that less funding can have a particularly negative affect on student persistence; students from low income backgrounds reported that they were more likely to either leave full-time studies for lower-cost part-time options or leave post-secondary education altogether if costs increased.

This week, undergraduate and graduate students from across the country will be meeting with representatives of all political parties in Ottawa to discuss the findings of the report and present a plan to reform the Canada Student Loans Program to ensure that students have the ability to pay for tuition, textbooks and basic necessities while attending school.

The "Canadian Student Survey" 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 the Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA), in collaboration with regional and institutional partners, including the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA), Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS) and Alliance of Nova Scotia Student Associations (ANSSA).

The "Canadian Student Survey: Summer Work and Paying for Post-Secondary Education" report is the first of three to be released this year, and can be found in full here: http://www.casa-acae.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/10/Canadian-Student-Survey-Summer-Work-and-Paying-for-PSE.pdf

The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations (CASA) is a non-partisan, not-for-profit national student organization composed of 25 student associations, representing over 300,000 students from coast to coast.

For further information: or to arrange an interview, please contact: Jillian Flake, Public Relations and Communications Officer, Canadian Alliance of Student Associations, Tel.: [phone] ext. 224, (c) [phone], Email: [email protected]