Canadian student debt hits $13B

Economics Chapter Four

Link: http://www.theprovince.com/Business/Canadian+student+debt+hits/1202312/story.html

Summary

This year, about 360 000 students are carrying loans from the federal government, provincial government, banks, and also family. The CFS or the Canadian Federation of Students calculated that about $13-billion is owed to the Canada Student Loans Program, a program organized by the federal government. Although this figure is a huge amount that the federal government is preparing, the CFS is still hoping that the federal government's budget will still have money to make education a more reasonable price. Many students are being dragged down by thousands of dollars of dept, even when the economy is on its downturn. At this point, the CFS believes that the federal government should use post-secondary education to help with the federal government’s economic recovery plan because they can help students get the necessary training with affordable education so that Canada can shift to a “knowledge-based economy”.

Connections

The connection between chapter four and this article is the education function in the federal expenditure. This Post-secondary education problem is having a huge impact on education spending and also on top of the economic recession, the CFS pointed out four direct investments that they want from the federal government:

- raising the Canada Social Transfer to provinces to $1.2 billion to help reduce debt and tuition fees

- increasing support to aboriginal students by at least $200 million

- increasing funding to graduate students by $100 million

- doubling the budget for the Canada Summer Jobs program to about $200 million

These additional investments will definitely have an influence over the millions of dollar figure on the education expenses and possibly other expenses such as employment, and transportation aswell.

Reflection

I think if Canada invests on education, it would definitely help the economy. It would benefit all students in Canada and also create a better image for Canada's future by enhancing the knowledge of citizens. Although these investments would have a great impact on the million dollars of education expenses, it would be worth a try because outer countries would view Canada's education as more beneficial and could possible increase international students in Canada.