February 19, 2003

Wednesday, February 19, 2003

Bursaries cushion shock of rising fees
Budget helps with research, student aid
Pixels in the big picture

Editor:
Chris Redmond
credmond@uwaterloo.ca

After the bubble bursts: Communitech luncheon

[Joanne Wade in office]

Bursaries cushion shock of rising fees -- by Barbara Elve, from today's Gazette

"Rents are soaring, food costs are going up, and there are fewer part-time jobs these days," says Joanne Wade (right), director of student awards and student financial aid. "Students are trying to make ends meet from any sources they can." She's hoping UW's $7.4 million bursary pot for 2002-2003 will help relieve some of those financial pressures.

Already, more than 1,000 students have applied for bursary funds this term. "That's more than usual," says Wade, "and the number of applications goes up every year."

Fewer students qualify for OSAP
UW students are cutting their course loads, working more hours at part-time jobs, and applying for bursary funds -- all to help compensate for reduced OSAP funds. Changes quietly introduced by the province in 1996 to the Ontario Student Assistance Program are still making it tough for many students to finance their education. . . . More in today's Gazette.
Since 1996, the province has required that a fraction of the tuition fee increase each year be set aside for student financial aid. Back in 1995, the university had just $67,750 in endowment funds used for bursary assistance. Starting in 1996, UW was required to use 10 per cent of tuition increases for bursaries. This year, 30 per cent of tuition hikes -- two per cent for most programs; as much as 15 per cent for others -- has to be allocated to the bursary fund, and the total is in the millions.

The value of individual bursaries ranges from $100 to $1,500 per term, says Wade, based on a calculation of students' "costs minus resources."

Priority for bursary funding goes to students who have received the maximum OSAP loan, and still have unmet needs. Second in line for bursary money are students who received some OSAP funds (not necessarily the maximum) and still have unmet needs.

UW student aid staff use different, less bureaucratic criteria for assessment of need from those used by OSAP. "I try to be more personal in awarding bursaries," says Wade. Under OSAP, for example, ownership of a car is seen as an asset. But knowing how cars can drain resources, and how some students need a car for work or family responsibilities, UW aid criteria ignore cars, seeing them as neither asset nor expense.

Awarding bursaries to help students in need "is the part of my job that gives me a great feeling," she adds. "We're often seen as the bad guys when we have to apply OSAP rules."

A big part of that job now is administering the entrance bursary program. Of the $7.4 million in bursary funds available this year, $3 million has been allocated for entrance bursaries, with individual values of between $500 and $3,000 for the academic year. The bursary offers go out with offers of admission "to put money in the hands of students early enough to decide if they could come to Waterloo." Based on financial information provided by the student's family, the entrance award "helps reduce student debt load in the first year," explains Wade.

Last year, she says, there were 3,400 applications for entrance bursaries, and 1,600 offers sent to students admitted to UW. As a result, some 800 new students arrived in September with entrance bursaries.

Any surplus bursary funds are carried over to the next year, says Wade. "For the past couple of years, the surplus funds have been used to create full-time jobs on campus for students. Last year alone, 166 one-term jobs were funded with leftover bursary money."

Of interest on the web

Recording industry asks corporations to block downloads
Ottawa libraries to get connected on-line
Investing in education helps poor countries, study finds
The wrong way to be famous at Ryerson
A Dialogue on Mathematics and Literature
March break in Daytona Beach will be calmer
'Reinventing' undergraduate education at Stony Brook
Laurier student collecting books for Zambian library

Budget helps with research, student aid

Students sounded particularly happy in reaction to the parts of yesterday's federal budget that touched on post-secondary education.

Higher education measures (Globe and Mail)
Globe full coverage
CBC full coverage
The Canadian Alliance of Student Associations said it was "extremely pleased with the proposals" in John Manley's first budget since becoming minister of finance. CASA particularly noted changes to student assistance rules, summarizing them like this:

"The In-study income exemption is now $1700 a year. Currently, students can only earn $600 a year before they are penalized on their student loan. CASA lobbied for the increase to $1700 a year to match Ontario's standards."
"On top of being able to earn $1700 a year, students can now receive up to $1800 in merit-based scholarships before being penalized on their student loan. CASA lobbied for a $1500 exemption for merit-based scholarships."
"Debt Reduction in Repayment has been amended so that students in repayment will now benefit significantly from the program. The announcement directly reflects CASA policy and includes eliminating the 50 per cent cap on reducing a loan, being eligible to have an additional $5000 taken off the balance of the loan for each of the 2 years after the initial reduction, and the income threshold changing to make more people eligible to receive DRR."
"More students are eligible for Interest Relief measures including those who have defaulted on their loans or have declared bankruptcy."

CASA also commended some of the other measures announced in Manley's budget speech yesterday:

"Indirect Costs of Research is now a permanent fund. CASA lobbied for IDR to become a permanent fund. This year, IDR will receive $225 million dollars. This program will be reviewed in 3 years."
"CASA has advocated that there needs to be a greater emphasis on the Social Science and Humanities Research Council. The distribution criteria for the newly created $200 million Canada Graduate Scholarships pleases CASA as 60 per cent of the scholarships will go to SSHRC students."
"Granting Councils (SSHRC, NSERC and CIHR) will receive a 10 per cent increase in funding. This will cost the Government $125 million dollars for all 3 granting councils."

Said the student group, which includes UW's Federation of Students: "Undergraduate and graduate students should be relieved to see the government finally acknowledge their needs and put money directly into PSE [post-secondary education]."

The Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada, representing administrations, was inclined to agree. AUCC president Robert Giroux said the budget "will open new horizons . . . will help universities to raise the bar on research."

AUCC is particularly enthusiastic about the newly announced funding for the indirect, or "overhead", costs of research. Universities got a taste of indirect-cost funding this year, with a one-time payout of $200 million announced in the budget of December 2001, and it's now permanent, or as permanent as any government program. Judging from how much of the money UW received last year, Waterloo's annual share of the new funding could be about $7 million annually.

"All the elements are now in place to complete the foundation for enhancing Canada's university research efforts," said Giroux. "The new graduate scholarship program, combined with the funding for indirect costs of research and more funding for research overall, will help universities do more for Canadians. We're particularly pleased by the new funding for graduate studies and research in the humanities and social sciences, which are crucial areas for the future of our country."

There was a bit less enthusiasm for the budget from the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which said in a news release that "the budget's emphasis on new social spending is long overdue, but . . . Finance Minister John Manley has trouble earning a passing grade when it comes to meeting the educational needs of Canadians."

CAUT president Victor Catano said he welcomes the new federal spending on health care, "but is concerned about the lack of accountability in federal transfers and notes that, even with today's increases, program spending as a share of the economy remains near post-war lows. . . . The real problem we're struggling with is the reduction in core operating grants to universities and colleges."

Pixels in the big picture

Yesterday I referred to Pamela Wallin, Canada's consul-general in New York, as a member of the UW board of governors. She was, but she isn't any longer: when she took the New York job on behalf of the Canadian government, author-broadcaster Wallin resigned from some of her other roles, including her "community-at-large" seat on the UW board.

Hundreds of students in grades 9, 10 and 11 are hunched over exam papers this morning, writing the 60-minute Pascal, Cayley, and Fermat math contests administered by UW's Centre for Education in Mathematics and Computing. Each contest consists of 25 multiple-choice questions, "ranging from easy to difficult. . . . Rather than testing content, most of the problems test logical thinking and mathematical problem solving," CEMC promises. "The last few questions are designed to test ingenuity and insight." Awards include gold medals, $200 cheques, and invitations to come to UW in June for the annual Mathematics Contests Seminar -- and, no doubt, the math faculty will be keeping an eye on the winners as they move up to writing the upper-level Euclid Contest in a year or two.

The "Potato People" are performing children's shows in UW's Humanities Theatre at 10:00 and 1:15 today (and at the same hours again tomorrow).

Steven Huesing, editor of Healthcare Information Management and Communications Canada, will speak today as the "smarter health" seminar series continues. His topic: "View from the Mountain: Innovation Across the Healthcare Market". The talk starts at 3 p.m. in Davis Centre room 1302.

A "dialogue" about "Implications and Potential for Waterloo Region's Central Transit Corridor" will start at 7:30 tonight at 70 King Street East, the home of UW's Civics Research Group, based in the faculty of environmental studies. Today's event is part of a weekly series of "civic dialogues", and will be led by undergraduate student Wesley Andreas, who's working on the transit corridor issue for his senior honours thesis. Plans are being developed for a transit spine -- light rail, maybe -- running from Elmira through Kitchener-Waterloo into Cambridge, and Andreas has some expertise because of a recent co-op job with the Waterloo Region planning department. "We encourage participants," an announcement says, "to come and share their ideas, air their views, or rant constructively about transit potential in Waterloo Region."

Water shutdowns tomorrow: chilled water will be off in the Dana Porter Library from 7:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. (golly, what a shame, no cooling during this heat wave); hot water will be off in the Physics building from 8 a.m. to noon.

Staff who aren't members of the UW staff association are invited to a "town hall meeting" tomorrow starting at 11:50 (Arts Lecture Hall room 211) to hear about what the association might have to offer them.

UW's senate long-range planning committee is scheduled to meet Friday at 1:30 p.m. in Needles Hall room 3004. Main agenda item: "How to proceed."

Finally, I'll repeat this note from the registrar's office that appeared a few days ago: Quest, the online student information system, will be shut down for upgrades February 21-24. "Please note: February 21 is the last day for 50% tuition refund. If you need to drop a class within the 50% tuition refund period, we encourage you to do so online using Quest by February 20. If you need to drop a class on February 21, you have one of two options, you can visit the Quest Support Desk in Needles Hall on February 21 or you can forward an email to quest@uwaterloo.ca on February 21. Winq and Appstat will be available during this shutdown period but they will not be updated."

CAR