Province quietly cuts nursing student aid, other programs

When she considered attending Kwantlen, Merrilee Foster thought about her two kids, six-year-old Karsten and 12-year-old Kayla. She thought about her two jobs. She thought about the burden of paying back student loans. She knew there would be sacrifices – but she knew she had the ability to help people.

The 39-year-old single mom took the plunge and applied for Kwantlen’s home support resident care attendant program.

She chose that program because, four-and-a-half years ago, Foster learned that her mother had cancer and took care of her at home.

“I didn’t have any training, but, of course, it’s your parent and that’s what you do,” she said.

When her mother passed away years later, a doctor took her aside and said what she did was amazing: not many people could emotionally and physically do what she had done. “I thought there’s gotta be more to my life than what I [was] doing. There’s gotta be a positive. So I decided this was the route that I was gonna take.”

As she made plans to attend Kwantlen, Foster knew student aid “was everything.” She told the financial aid office that she thought she was crazy. But the financial aid staff told her “there’s so much out there you’re eligible for. Just jump in and do it.”

Foster called a government official in Victoria for help completing an application for a health care bursary. “She walked me through it and reassured me, so I could sleep at night,” recalled Foster.

Weeks later, she received a letter in the mail saying that funding had been eliminated.

The B.C. government eliminated $16 million in student aid this summer. There was no official announcement and word only reached the public on July 22, when a leaked document listed the programs that were to be immediately and quietly cut. They were the Permanent Disabilities Benefits Program, the Debt Reduction in Repayment Program, the B.C. Loan Reduction for Residential Care Aide and Home Support Worker Program, the Health Care Bursary and the Premier’s Excellence Award Program. Funding for the Nurses Education Bursary was reduced.

Ashley Fehr, the KSA’s chairperson and director of academic affairs, said, “It just makes me sick. It’s disgusting.”

Fehr said 25 per cent of full-time Kwantlen students depend on some form of student aid. Because Kwantlen has a large nursing program, the university will be hit harder by the cuts than most schools. Fehr is already seeing the impact at the KSA office in Surrey, where students are telling her they don’t know when they’ll have time to complete homework because of the need to work. She expects to see more stressed-out students than usual this year because of financial hardship.

The decision to make the cuts, said Fehr, is “short-sighted because education is necessary for economic recovery . . . We’re going to have a lower-educated society.”

“Any cuts right now are just a wrong, wrong decision.”

Dr. Claudette Kelly, Kwantlen’s dean of community and health studies, said the cuts are “unconscionable in a time when there’s such a demand for health care workers.”

Foster, who still has to account for groceries, her mortgage and the usual mom-related expenses, decided she would tighten her belt and manage, because she wants badly enough to do the course. She refuses to worry about finances because “If I start worrying about it now, I’ll be consumed by it.” But she’s worried about the future of B.C. health care.

Foster said B.C. residents will continue to need health care, but there may not be enough workers, or the workers won’t be as qualified.

“I don’t think that’s gonna be the only cut to bursaries and grants.”