Students to launch provincial campaign to tackle student debt

Canadian Federation of Students-British Columbia

Monday, October 19, 2009

Students from across BC will launch a campaign tomorrow to pressure the BC government to reduce student debt. The launch will be supported by faculty and will also mark the release of Statistics Canada's annual tuition fee survey.

The campaign, called "Education Shouldn't be a Debt Sentence", will highlight BC's record-high student debt and mobilize students to pressure the BC government to:
• reduce tuition fees;
• restore per-student funding for universities and colleges;
• re-establish a provincial student grants program; and
• eliminate interest on BC student loans.

"No previous generation of students in BC has been forced this deep into debt, just to get a basic diploma or degree. For tens of thousands of students in BC, education has become a debt sentence," said Shamus Reid, Chairperson of the CFS-BC.

What: Education Shouldn't be a Debt Sentence campaign launch
Who: members of the Canadian Federation of Students-BC and the President of the Federation of Post-Secondary Educators of BC
Where: Hotel Grand Pacific, Salt Spring room (Room 231, 2nd floor), Victoria
When: Tuesday, October 20, 10:30 AM

The Canadian Federation of Students-British Columbia is BC's provincial student organisation, representing over 150,000 university and college students in the province. The CFS-BC is the provincial affiliate of the Canadian Federation of Students, an alliance of more than 80 university and college students' unions and Canada's largest student organisation, with a combined membership of over one-half million students.

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