The open letter focuses on five core demands: for the government to cap international student tuition fee increases at two percent annually; to release a plan on how international study permits will be distributed to institutions in BC; to complete the Post-Secondary Funding Formula Review and determine gaps in government funding, in particular for regional colleges and universities; to develop a funding model that provides long-term financial stability for institutions, delivers quality education and services for students, and does not rely on student tuition fees as the main source of funding; and, lastly, to invest in BC\u2019s public post-secondary institutions to ensure post-secondary education is affordable and accessible, and that the province is able to produce the skilled workers needed in the labour force.<\/p>\n BCFS secretary-treasurer Jessie Niikoi says that addressing these issues isn\u2019t anything new, but with many problems being left unresolved and new ones being created, it\u2019s essential to continue addressing them.<\/p>\n \u201cThe reason why we have this letter is another way of getting our message out there,\u201d says Niikoi. \u201cWe\u2019ve been making the calls, we\u2019ve been advocating for these things for… over four years now. And the letter was one of the ways we wanted to address or just put it out there to the premier that this is what we need for post-secondary education and now is a crucial time to take some action on things.\u201d<\/p>\n Niikoi says that the provincial government has long overlooked issues regarding funding and this has led to an over-reliance on international student tuition fees. She believes this creates an environment where \u201cstudents are going to feel preyed on,\u201d she says. Following the federal government\u2019s recent announcement regarding its two-year international student permit cap, critics have brought up concerns surrounding financial issues. Niikoi says this issue isn\u2019t unfamiliar.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen COVID happened and the borders were closed and we were not receiving as many international students, there were some institutions that were facing major deficits,\u201d says Niikoi. \u201cAnd right now, since we have a cap on the numbers, or we\u2019re going to have a cap on the numbers, that is also something that could occur again.\u201d<\/p>\n Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) external executive Jagjeet Singh says that there\u2019s a significant lack of funding that needs to be addressed and resolved by the provincial government as soon as possible.<\/p>\n Since the BC government decoupled post-secondary funding from inflation in the early 2000s, institutions have had substantially less funding. At the time, funding was at 80 percent to 90 percent, which has since dropped to an average between 30 percent and 40 percent today.<\/p>\n \u201cSo that\u2019s been a deficit that the government itself has created over the years because year by year the funding never increased,\u201d says Singh. \u201cBut everything got more expensive and so did the operational cost for the institution.\u201d<\/p>\n Singh says that international students disproportionately suffer from these systemic obstacles. He says the issue lies with the lack of financial support from the BC government and says that \u201cmost of the time it\u2019s because of the limited resources that our institutions have.\u201d<\/p>\n Niikoi says that students are the ones funding their education, which shouldn\u2019t be the case for a system that is public.<\/p>\n \u201c[If the] post-secondary education sector is called a public post-secondary education sector, it means it has to be publicly funded,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n The BCFS is looking to see Eby and the government take the first steps to fund a larger percentage of post-secondary students\u2019 tuition.<\/p>\n \u201cI think one of the things we want to, we\u2019re expecting, is at least for the government to start taking more steps in actually addressing the issue of post-secondary education funding,\u201d says Niikoi. \u201cWe want the funding review completed so that we can identify, or the government can identify, the gaps in funding that is happening with the post-secondary education sector and then fund that sector. Because that\u2019s one of the basic things that\u2019s causing all of these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n Singh realizes how this impacts students currently living with economic adversity.<\/p>\n \u201cThey struggle a lot,\u201d he says. \u201cThere\u2019s food insecurity, which, obviously, because tuitions are so high at times, students have to choose between that and food, and I\u2019ve seen that happen more than once.\u201d<\/p>\n But the BCFS and CCSS see the potential in action from Eby and hope that he takes the right steps to ensure stability, and a lighter financial burden, for post-secondary students.<\/p>\n \u201cThe students, hopefully, will have better services when they come here,\u201d says Singh, \u201cand better supports, which they need.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In an effort to fix what it says are systemic issues plaguing British Columbia\u2019s post-secondary institutions, the British Columbia Federation of Students (BCFS) has written an open letter to BC premier David Eby calling for urgent action. On Tuesday, February 13, the BCFS, along with student unions and partner organizations across the province, released the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15266,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,307],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25164","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-march-6-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25164","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25164"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25164\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25165,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25164\/revisions\/25165"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15266"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25164"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25164"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25164"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/01\/IMG_4616-300x225.jpg\")
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