OSAP funding leaves students hungry
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February 24, 2010 12:15 AM
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From Mar. 8 to 26, seven students from across the province will participate in the Food For Thought Campaign run by the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) to advocate for better funding.
The students will be living on $7.50 to represent the mere $226 per month food and nutrition allocation prescribed by the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP).
“We’re really working to draw attention to the fact that currently the Ontario Student Assistance Program is chronically underfunded and does far too little to support students,” said Dan Moulton, president of OUSA.
The participating students will share the difficulties of their experience over the course of the three weeks through blog entries, video blogs and other elements of social media posted on OUSA’s website.
Wilfrid Laurier University student Nick Gibson is participating in the campaign to raise awareness about the difficulties students have in funding their education.
“We can’t be just giving out money with no sort of responsibility and I understand that from the government’s point of view, however, students have to focus on academics,” said Gibson.
“For them to have to take time out of their lives to worry about how they’re going to get food, let alone the other little things that come up. That certainly wears on you.”
Maintaining a healthy and balanced diet with the additional complications of spending hours away from home and on campus is no easy task on such a tight budget.
“Sometimes it may come to the point where I have to skip a meal. That’s the sort of thing we’re trying to point out, that no matter how frugal you try to be at some points it’s going to be unhealthy,” said Gibson.
Treating food as a social excursion will be near impossible with such little money to spend.
“The idea is just to limit going out as much as possible,” said Gibson. “Any time I go out, even to Wilf’s … I’ve just got to totally basically eliminate and be a really, really shrewd grocery shopper.”
Groceries will be the most effective way for students to sustain themselves, since fast food– even on campus– will not ensure enough meals in a day with only $7.50 to spend.
“The realistic nature of this campaign is that we’re demonstrating that of course students can’t live off so little per day in food and nutrition allocation,” explained Moulton.
The food allocation is only one of the areas that OUSA has noted failures in the method which OSAP calculates the needs of students.
“When you calculate from whereever– academic materials, the cost of living, the weekly allowance– these are figures that are drastically lower than they need to be and we need to see our government stepping up and investing in this program,” said Moulton.
“Hopefully we’ll see some change in the right places,” said Gibson.
The cost of food at Laurier
$9. 49 Gourmet burger and fries Dining hall
$4.04 Small pasta salad Union Market
$6.59 Chicken Caesar pita Pita Shack
$3.98 Egg bagel Concourse cafe
$6.39 Big meatball sub Mr. Sub
$0.99
One fresh fruit
Dining hall
*Price before tax
Comments
Why is the Cord only comparing the allowance to prepared foods? Given the cost of food at restaurants represents less than 50% of the retail price its no wonder that those prices would exceed the food and nutrition allowance, but an individual should be able to live healthily on more than $50/week in grocery money.
Hey Jim, your alternative still doesn't add up. With food (and don't forget drink) costs at 33% of the final price of a meal you're still going to get a result of only two meals a day, something the government certainly doesn't encourage in their food guides.
As for cooking at home, that certainly isn't free. Do you use kitchenware to cook at home? How about hot water? These cost money too.
Furthermore, not all universities campuses have groceries stores within walking distance or on public transit, so those costs should matter too.
And let us not forget, OSAP is a loan. This isn't a welfare scheme, let the kids eat.
Hey Griffin,
One thing to clarify. OSAP can be considered a welfare scheme when one includes defaults. Any low-cost loan where the cost is so low that the government ends up losing money is a welfare scheme. Look at the student debt situation in the U.S. right now, where the new graduate unemployment rate is north of 20% in many areas. Defaults are skyrocketing. Same will go for Canada. Eventually, a scenario will arise where the loans were given in too good of faith and the Cdn govt (i.e. every taxpayer) will lose on those loans.
If you enter university with $0 saved up, you probably shouldn't be coming to university. Why the rush to get an UG education that leaves most scrounging for underpaid careers that leave your $40k loan unpaid for decades? What happened to preparing for university?
With $0 saved, no scholarship and no backers (mom, dad, granny, etc) to help you along the way, its immoral to ask the rest of society to back your jumbo loan.
Signed,
Captain Knowledgeable.
Also, to comment on the actual article...
There is a reason why the food allowance is the bare minimum. It allows you to survive eating garbage. If you want to eat better either a) get a PT job or b) have backers who care enough about you to pay for healthy food. Bill in Yellowknife should not be paying for Susie to eat starfruit while enrolled at WLU.
First of all, in many countries, students don't recieve ANY money to fund their education. Whether it be a loan, scholarship, award etc. So instead of complaining, we should be grateful that we are able to get as much as $12000/yr.
Secondly, I attended Sheridan College for the BAA Animation program before which was very demanding in terms of money since the materials/equipment needed were very expensive and not included in the tuition. With a tuition of $7000 and an osap loan of $11,900 I was able to eat big healthy meals 3 times a day by cooking everyday.
If you are talking about eating healthy then you shouldn't even be bringing up eating out, be it at Laurier's dining hall or at a plaza. Neither of these are as healthy as cooking for yourself.
I think "gourmet burger" is stretching it a bit. We are talking about the dining hall here.