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<\/a>\u201c[T]here\u2019s\u2026 a lot of students who have started asking if there\u2019s some sort of financial support that student unions provide because they\u2019re starting to face the pressure of increased tuition, unaffordable housing, a lot of things that are affecting them when it comes to their post-secondary education,\u201d says Niikoi. \u201cAnd we know that this is something that\u2019s happening across BC right now, but students have that added cost of tuition to that and it\u2019s causing a problem everywhere.\u201d<\/p>\n
The poll also found that one in five Canadian students are currently sourcing financial advice from social media platforms such as Instagram, TikTok, and YouTube. Camosun College Student Society (CCSS) external executive Prince Solanki says he\u2019s concerned about the potential for misinformation and would like to see the college attempt to better educate students on budgeting. Solanki also says he\u2019s noticed more students accessing resources such as the food bank on campus. He says the CCSS has increased their available items to accommodate students\u2019 growing needs.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have increased our food services. We used to have bread days, but now we were having vegetables as well… We see lots of students are even more aware of these things now, and they are coming forward to take some bread,\u201d says Solanki. \u201cWe are trying our best to support students.\u201d<\/p>\n
Niikoi says that in addition to managing basic needs, the BCFS is hearing about an increasing amount of students living in sub-standard housing circumstances. She says issues have only escalated post-COVID.<\/p>\n
\u201cThings are unaffordable in BC, there\u2019s increased cost in accessing food, like groceries are expensive now,\u201d she says. \u201cSo a lot of students are also having to rely on their food banks on campus\u2026 And housing is so unaffordable, so now students are having to rent places with a lot of them in one place. So you would have four or five people in a one bedroom as opposed to usually a one bedroom would take one or two people maximum. But a lot of people are now having to cut the cost by living in places that are not really good for them.\u201d<\/p>\n
The BCFS represents over 170,000 BC students at 14 post-secondary institutions\u2014including Camosun\u2014advocating for affordability and equity for students. Niikoi says the federation is currently voicing their desire to the BC government for greater funding of institutions to better support students.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne thing that we are advocating for to the provincial government is to get more funding for institutions, because the one thing we have research on is that in the late 1990s to early 2000s, post-secondary was publicly funded around 70 percent to 80 percent from the provincial government,\u201d she says. \u201cAs of right now, we\u2019re sitting at less than 50 percent of that funding coming from the provincial government. So what needs to be done, and what we are advocating for, is for more funding for institutions so they don\u2019t have to rely on students to make up for those funding shortfalls. Because these are things that we\u2019re seeing across the province… The government needs to take this step in actually providing that upfront cost in terms of funding for institutions, so they don\u2019t have to rely on students for that funding.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A recent poll has found that Canadian post-secondary students and their parents are struggling to support students\u2019 basic financial needs. Released on August 27, the poll, conducted by by TD Bank, found that 65 percent of students consider themselves \u201cfinancially unstable,\u201d with nearly 45 percent unable to cover necessities such as food and housing. Additionally, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":25772,"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":[13,317],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25771","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-september-18-2024"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25771","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=25771"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25771\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25773,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25771\/revisions\/25773"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25772"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25771"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25771"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25771"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}