'Missed opportunity': Budget 2022 gets lukewarm reviews from student groups

The most recent federal budget is getting mixed reviews from post-secondary students.

While student groups are welcoming some of the broader budget elements related to life affordability, such as housing and dental care, they say they're disappointed in the lack of measures related to post-secondary education affordability, workforce entry and mental health.

As tuition costs in most provinces continue to creep up every year, student groups point out that Budget 2022 contains no commitments to permanently eliminate student loan interest or increase the maximum income threshold for the Repayment Assistance Plan to $50,000 -- promises that the Liberals made during last year's federal election campaign.

• Capital Dispatch: Stay up to date on the latest news from Parliament Hill

Jason Baryluk, general manager and director of advocacy for the College Student Alliance, says the measures aimed at housing affordability are "good initial steps," given that students have also been dealing with increasingly expensive housing costs on limited budgets. But, overall, he says his feelings on the budget are "mixed."

"College students are facing significant challenges over the past years, especially throughout the pandemic, in terms of the quality of their education, the affordability of their education. To be kind of left out of the budget completely, it's very disappointing." Baryluk told CTVNews.ca over the phone on Monday.

This year's federal budget reaffirms the commitments made in last year's budget to double the maximum amount that students could receive through the Canada Student Grant until July 2023, waive interest on the federal portion of student loans until March 2023 and bolster the Repayment Assistance Plan to allow graduates to hold off on making loan payments until they're earning at least $40,000 annually.

However, student groups had hoped to see the feds go beyond this and implement the promises that were made in the last election on student loan interest and repayments.

"The government should be doing more to help students in that regard. And if that involves working with the provinces to lower tuition or providing grants rather than burying students under a mountain of debt -- any step would have been significantly appreciated," said Baryluk.

The Canadian Federation of Students has applauded the $5.3 billion in funding commitments made in the budget towards a national dental care program, but criticized the lack of student-specific measures, such as on-campus mental health supports.

"We would love to have seen direct investment in mental health support on campus for students," said federation chairperson Alannah Mckay in a phone interview with CTVNews.ca on Monday.

The Liberals last year campaigned on spending $500 million over a four-year period to hire 1,200 new mental health counsellors on post-secondary campuses across Canada, another election promise that wasn't included in this year's budget.

"When we look down on the ground, there's waitlists to see counsellors at different universities. Depending on their budget, some schools – especially smaller institutions -- will only have one to two counsellors per 500 students," Mckay said.

The Quebec Student Union has also called the budget "a missed opportunity." In addition to policies on education affordability and mental health, the group was hoping to see measures to allow more master's and PhD students to have access to research grants from the federal funding agencies, also known as the tri-agencies.

"If we don't support our students, there's a lot of them that will won't be able to complete their studies and they won't be able to … go out there and create companies and apply what they learned," Jonathan Desroches, the group's president, told CTVNews.ca in a phone interview on Monday.

WHAT'S IN THE BUDGET FOR STUDENTS?

While the budget didn't have any broad measures for post-secondary students, there were a few targeted items focusing on graduate researchers, medical school grads, and Black and Indigenous students.

The feds are committing to $47.8 million over five years to launch a new "lab-to-market platform" to help graduate students and researchers find employment.

There's also $18 million dedicated to supporting access to post-secondary education for at-risk and Indigenous youth.

The budget also includes a $1.5 million commitment for the Jean Augustine Chair in Education, Community and Diaspora at York University, a position dedicated to improving access and outcomes for Black students and fighting racial inequities and barriers in the education system.

In addition, $385.7 million is being further invested into Canada's immigration system to speed up processing for international students as well as foreign workers and tourists.

To address the shortage of health-care professionals in rural and remote communities, the feds are allocating $26.2 million over four years starting in 2023 for student loan forgiveness for nursing and medical school graduates who work in these communities. Doctors will be able to receive up to $60,000 in loan forgiveness while nurses will be eligible for up to $30,000.