Students Release Report on Municipal Affairs in Ontario

TORONTO, April 10, 2014 /CNW/ - The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) is proud to announce the release of Home Schooled: Municipal Affairs and the Student Experience in Ontario, the second report of the 2014 What Students Want Report Series. In November 2013, OUSA launched its biennial Ontario Post-Secondary Student Survey and received approximately 9,000 responses to a series of 140 post-secondary related questions. Today's report launch examines the experiences undergraduate students have had living within their municipalities including housing quality, public transit, safety, and municipal engagement.

"When government and university administration discuss post-secondary issues, the impact municipal issues have on a student's academic success and how they can affect the affordability of post-secondary are often overlooked," said Amir Eftekarpour, OUSA President and Vice-President External of the University Students' Council (USC) at Western University. "The affordability of high-quality housing and accessible public transit in a particular municipality can heavily influence an individual's choice of university, or whether or not they will pursue a degree at all."

Home Schooled: Municipal Affairs and the Student Experience in Ontario also details three recent case studies illustrating the impact municipal affairs have had on undergraduate students in Ontario including the realignment of electoral boundaries in Kingston, a targeted police program in London, and rising transit costs in the Waterloo region.

"Increasingly, OUSA's student leaders are being told how important a priority retaining students after graduation are for many of Ontario's municipalities," continued Eftekarpour. "If university towns wish to retain university graduates once students have completed their degrees, increased efforts must be made to ensure that students feel welcomed by their local communities and develop meaningful connections with their municipalities over the course of their degrees."

To read Home Schooled: Municipal Affairs and the Student Experience in Ontario, click here.

About the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA)

OUSA represents the interests of over 140,000 professional and undergraduate, full- and part-time university students at eight member associations across Ontario.

SOURCE: Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance

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