One of the goals of the first New Brunswick Student Alliance advocacy week was to make getting financial assistance easier for students.
One of the ways they did this was to make an ‘ask’ that benefited students who work instead of punishing them.
Right now, students with jobs can only make $100 without being docked by the financial assistance program. The alliance asked for that to be raised to $200 so students aren’t being punished for working.
“That way we’re not penalizing the about 27 per cent of students in this province who do work,” said STUSU president Elizabeth Murphy, who attended advocacy week.
“This is a way to incentivise people who want to work but also not punish those who are trying to help fund their education,” she said.
Executive director of the NBSA Pat Joyce said this ask in particular was important because the government is going under a financial assistance review.
“We really thought it would be an opportunity to tell them how much students are involved in studying and making their education work for them,” said Joyce. “I think we got some attention to that area.”
Joyce also said encouraging workforce skills and jobs for young people is a priority for the Alward government so this ask resonated well with the MLAs.
“This would be helpful for students and we knew the government would listen,” said Joyce. “Students shouldn’t be punished for working and that’s the case right now. It seems a little backwards.”
Murphy said this was one of the most popular asks for MLAs which makes sense because it is focused more towards conservative thinking. She said she met with post-secondary education minister Jody Carr and he said MLAs had positive responses and the alliance was well received.
The PSE department was unavailable for comment before time of publication.
Murphy said the focus for advocacy week was on financial aid and as years go on, they’ll expand the asks and topics discussed at these meetings.
Joyce is looking forward to the reaction from the government for this ask and said they’ll find out if any change has been made when the provincial budget is released, which will be sometime in the next few weeks.
“From there we’ll find out what the reaction from the government is,” said Joyce. “Maybe we’ll get an announcement or a question in Question Period.”
