{"id":7756,"date":"2013-10-02T09:00:01","date_gmt":"2013-10-02T16:00:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=7756"},"modified":"2013-10-01T11:35:34","modified_gmt":"2013-10-01T18:35:34","slug":"a-message-from-the-camosun-college-student-society-strength-in-student-numbers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2013\/10\/02\/a-message-from-the-camosun-college-student-society-strength-in-student-numbers\/","title":{"rendered":"A Message from the Camosun College Student Society<\/em>: Strength in student numbers"},"content":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Camosun College Student Society (CCSS)\u00a0provides services, events, and advocacy to its members to improve student life and educational quality at\u00a0Camosun College.<\/p>\n

Students at Camosun are also members of their provincial and national students\u2019 union, the Canadian Federation of Students-BC and the Canadian Federation of\u00a0Students.<\/p>\n

As\u00a0members\u00a0of the\u00a0provincial and national student\u00a0federations, Camosun students have access to a wide range of\u00a0cost-saving\u00a0services, including\u00a0the\u00a0International Student Identity Card and\u00a0a high-quality\u00a0members\u2019 student handbook and day planner;\u00a0these are free services provided as benefits of membership.<\/p>\n

Provincially and nationally, students benefit from\u00a0lobby efforts that advocate for a universally accessible,\u00a0high-quality system of postsecondary education at\u00a0Camosun College,\u00a0in\u00a0the province of BC, and\u00a0across\u00a0the country.<\/p>\n

Membership in these\u00a0student federations provides the benefit of strength in numbers: when we\u00a0are united in\u00a0advocating\u00a0for the needs of postsecondary students, we get\u00a0results.<\/p>\n

Over the years, our\u00a0federations\u00a0have won\u00a0many victories\u00a0that have improved the lives of students, such as\u00a0the establishment of the Canada Student Grant Program in 2009, which provides $620 million in non-repayable financial assistance to postsecondary students across Canada\u00a0each year, or the\u00a0cap on\u00a0annual tuition fee increases, ending three years of skyrocketing tuition fees in\u00a0BC.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0list of wins goes on, and so does the collective work of students from around the province and the country.<\/p>\n

Average\u00a0student debt for BC students upon graduation is almost $35,000;\u00a0that\u2019s around $8,500 above the national average,\u00a0and the\u00a0highest in the\u00a0country. BC also\u00a0charges\u00a0the highest interest rates on student loans: prime plus 2.5 percent.<\/p>\n

So what can we do about it? Being a member of a provincial and national student movement allows students to unite\u00a0under one banner and advocate for change.<\/p>\n

At the CFS-BC general\u00a0meeting\u00a0in August, students from across the province identified the following priorities for creating an accessible and higher quality system of postsecondary\u00a0education in BC: the reduction of tuition fees back to 2001 levels, the establishment of a needs-based provincial student grant program,\u00a0and\u00a0the elimination of interest rates on BC student loans.<\/p>\n

Further, students continue to identify the need for substantial increases\u00a0to institutional\u00a0funding.\u00a0The objective is to pressure the provincial government to develop a strategy to reduce student debt and\u00a0ensure\u00a0that\u00a0all British Columbians can access postsecondary education regardless of their families\u2019 income.<\/p>\n

The CCSS\u00a0continues\u00a0to advocate for Camosun students\u2019 needs and\u00a0fights\u00a0for\u00a0higher quality postsecondary education\u00a0alongside\u00a0hundreds of thousands of students\u00a0from across the country through the Canadian Federation of Students.<\/p>\n

If you would like to learn more about our campaigns or volunteer with us, please stop by our offices or send an email to\u00a0ccss@camosunstudent.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The\u00a0Camosun College Student Society (CCSS)\u00a0provides services, events, and advocacy to its members to improve student life and educational quality at\u00a0Camosun College. Students at Camosun are also members of their provincial and national students\u2019 union, the Canadian Federation of Students-BC and the Canadian Federation of\u00a0Students. As\u00a0members\u00a0of the\u00a0provincial and national student\u00a0federations, Camosun students have access to a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","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":[5,114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7756","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-columns","category-october-2-2013"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7756","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=7756"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7756\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7757,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7756\/revisions\/7757"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7756"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7756"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7756"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}