Current Mood:

Not rich, not poor enough
Middle-class students often don’t qualify for government loans
Too rich to qualify for full student loans but too poor to pay the tab themselves, Canada’s middle-class students are being squeezed into troubling debt and daunting work schedules to cover the cost of higher learning, a new study shows.

With a $10,000 gap between what the average post-secondary student earns each year and what they pay for their education, middle-income students often must take out pricey bank loans and jobs that eat into their studies, warns the study by the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation on the cost of higher education in Canada.

This “middle-income crunch” means students in families earning $50,000 to $75,000 a year are almost twice as likely to borrow from the bank to pay for school as classmates whose families earn less than $25,000 a year, said the report.

And they are half as likely to have a government loan with its lower interest and gentler payback terms.

“We’re concerned at this tendency to take out private loans; it means the system of student aid the government set up is not enough to cover the costs students have to pay,” said Norman Riddell, executive director of the foundation, which provides scholarships and studies higher education costs.

“There is a danger the middle-income families are getting squeezed as costs go up faster than inflation.”

The report, released yesterday, says a full-time post-secondary student needs on average $14,500 a year for study-related expenses, yet the average student earns only about $4,500 a year.

When a student loan goes beyond $10,000 a year, the chances are 30 per cent higher the student will not complete the program,” said Riddell.

Working middle-class
The report also shows that among students who start the school year with no intention to work, 60 per cent of those from middle-income families end up working for pay, compared to 40 per cent of the lowest-income students.

Source: Metro News

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Current Mood:

I finally got a sneak preview of my Fall 2007 schedule. It turns out Food, Place & Identity has a really hard-marker prof. So I’ve been looking to change that for the better. I might take Geography of Toronto which sounds interesting and I have read (from ratemyprofessor.com) that the prof that is teaching it is good. 8-) Now I cant change my schedule yet until next week. I am a bit excited that I’m going back to school after a year of working full time for a great oil company. As a co-op (intern) student, I got to experience what it’s like to work. One of the things I’ve learned is that I am NOT ready to go into the work industry. Not ready into the ‘real’ world! I am looking forward to school and dont wanna work yet… ;P I did get to save up some $ for this falls tuition and paid off some debts. With whatever $ I have left, I hope to buy myself my first ever laptop. I’ve been asking around for a good laptop brand. People didnt really like Dell. Some had mixed feelings on Toshiba & HP. But everyone so far has had nice things to say about Macbook. I dont want Macbook pro since it’s too big. I want a tiny 13″-15″ one. We’ll see. If I do get it, I’ll show it off in here. :cupid:

Current Mood:

Now that I officially have 1 job left, I find myself staying home and being bored and surfing the internet. After all, after September, I will be jobless. Thanks to the Blue Jays, I have this seasonal job that I can rely on every summer. Then after that I am doomed. I need a job for the school season and I am currently searching for one. I really dont want to have to fall back on doing retail again since that was what I did 2 years ago. I dont really want to have to lie to people and tell them that they look great on that black dress pants. :slant: If worse comes to worse, I will have to return to retail. I already know that I might get the job back if I go back ‘there’. I remember having no job for a month and it was killing me… I looked and looked. Finally finding something that I thought was so awesome but in reality it was almost like slavery.

Also I havent put myself in the gym for ages. I really should since I am paying for it monthly. If I dont get a job in a few months, I will be discontinuing my gym membership and just going to the university gym instead. I really dont want to have to do that. But we’ll see..

I’m excited that the school season is coming back yet at the same time, I dread the fact that I’ll be jobless once again. I guess there’s a downside to everything. :sad:

Current Mood:

Argh in a few days I’ll be back in school. I dont know but I’m a little excited and looking forward to it. Right now, I’m kinda bored without having to work and stuff. I shouldnt say that because I know that I’ll miss working as soon as I go back to school. So it turns out that I did get the job. She hired me on the spot yesterday during the interview. I’m so psyched. Whatever it is that I’m doing it’s a little challenging but it’s a research thing and I hope I’ll be able to balance this with school. I’ll be working in my university so it’ll be just right ‘there’. ;P Right so I have so much crap to do this week like maybe get a new laptop (I’ve never had one), pay off my tuition, buy a backpack, go to the dentist and wait for an email back from my university for this job. I hate going to the dentist. It turns out I have 2 cavities. It really stinks. I hate going there in the same week. :slant:

Plus the weather here has been so weird. The last few weeks was like 17 C now its like 27C. It went from me wearing my fall jacket in the end of August to wearing shorts again. Argh. Damn this climate.

Current Mood:

So today my sister, mom and I went to the Toronto Zoo. I was so hyped since I’ve never been to the zoo. I went crazy and took loads of photos. It was so hot like 34 C today and the weather network thought it was going to rain. :???: But really I thought we needed some rain or some cool air since it was so muggy. Thank goodness we had sunscreen on. Alot of walking was involved so I was prepared for that. We did had some breaks a few times. Ate overpriced junk food then continued to see more animals. I admit I enjoyed it more than my sister. She wanted to leave half way through and we haven’t even seen half of the animals. We didn’t get to see all of them since we would have to walk way far and our feet were aching plus the heat was getting to us. I kept asking the food place for some cup of ice so I could chew them. :rude: I love chewing on ice cubes. I wish they had the polar bear though and more fishes. I guess since it was so hot, they didn’t let out the polar bear since they are more used to cooler weathers. :smile: An example of what we saw can be seen above. More photos can be seen in here.