Campus Voices: How do you feel about the 2019 provincial budget?

On October 24, the United Conservatives Party (UCP) revealed its 2019 budget, which had significant implications for advanced education. 

With this new budget, the tuition freeze set by the previous New Democratic Party government was lifted, granting institutions the ability to raise tuition by seven per cent, per year for the next three years with a maximum of 10 per cent for a program. Tuition tax credits were also eliminated and student loan interest rates increased to 4.95 per cent.  

Under this budget, the University of Alberta saw a 6.9 per cent cut in their share of the Campus Alberta Grant, meaning a loss of $44 million dollars supporting academic programming. Additionally, the university has lost all funding towards infrastructure and maintenance for the remainder of 2019-20.

With many students already sharing their anxieties about supporting themselves through post-secondary under this budget, The Gateway documented student reactions the day after the budget was announced. 

Abyad Rahman — third-year accounting student (header)

“I believe cutting down the post-secondary operations budget for students can greatly harm the economy since [possible future university students] are less likely to pursue a post-secondary education, which is probably going to create a less competitive batch of students coming out in the future. In the long run, this is not great for Alberta’s economy, and I think this shouldn’t be a trend going forward in the future.” 

Morayo Oguntona — first-year biochemistry student

“Well, [it’s] not great, especially because I live on campus in one of the older buildings and the elevator has shut down a couple of times. If they’re not gonna [fix that], that’s not fun.”

Andy Zhang — fifth-year education student 

“[Sarcastically] I just think that judging the success of a curriculum based on how much graduates make after their degree is such a phenomenal way of measuring success of said curriculum. Honestly, one of the most honourable things you can do is try to quantify the qualitative, those things just go so well together. Trying to apply numbers to everything is the basis of human endeavours; it’s not about love or experiences or perspectives, but rather just cold hard cash. At the end of the day, aren’t we all just trying to become Scrooge McDuck and have a giant vat of cold coins to bathe in instead of love and affection? I don’t know — honestly, I blame books for global warming. I blame books and the sun. We should blow up the sun.”

Kevin Quach — first-year business student

“That sucks. I don’t want to spend more money on my tuition ‘cause I’m broke already.”

Ala Warszynski— fifth-year design student  

“It’s already hard enough trying to get through post-secondary school, and most people I know do take out loans, so it will be hard paying that back with the increased interest rates. It’s also sad that in the end, I feel like these cuts don’t really benefit people very much because it gives people who have money more money and it leaves students to be even more broke. What I’ve noticed is it comes down to people not being educated in certain things and now it’ll be even harder [to be educated] with the cuts.”

David Draper — third-year honours political science and sociology student

“Personally with the budget, I’m not happy at all. There are a lot of things that should’ve been funded that were not. They basically killed the Alberta film industry overnight. There [can] be seven per cent raises to tuition over the next three years which is terrifying, especially because it’s coupled with the loss of 35 million they designate to the University of Alberta for deferred maintenance when we’re already in the middle of a deferred maintenance crisis. They said they’re trying to balance the budget and fight the deficit, but they completely ignored the massive infrastructure deficit across Alberta and treating it like it doesn’t exist…. There are a lot of things that I’m really annoyed about, but there are some things that could’ve happened that didn’t, which I’m happy about. The entire budget can be summed up with the three B’s: big yikes, big oof, big sad.”

Sofia Capettini — fourth-year design visual communications student 

“I feel like it’s really disheartening to hear that as students, because we already pay so much money to be here and being in fine arts/art and design, we already don’t have the best funding. I’m at the end of my degree, so the most it’s going to affect me now is with student loans…. It almost feels like if you’re educated or if you’re wanting to seek an education, you almost get punished for it. I feel like with this new government — not to undermine trades — but if you’re not in the oil or trades sector, then what you’re doing isn’t important and it shouldn’t be prioritized. I think it’s important to encourage people to seek and education. It’s like putting all your eggs in one basket if you’re going to favour one part of society to the fullest and the rest has to pay for it.”

Chris Beasley — third-year political science student 

“I think this budget was never set up for success. If you go into it with the assumption that you are going to cut to make things work instead of raising other revenue streams, I think that framework was never going to produce anything that was going to make most Albertans happy or make the quality of life better for most Albertans. I’m not surprised by this budget because I think that was the fundamental flaw that went into it and we can see it now with what’s happening with post-secondary education, we can see it now with what’s happening across the province with people whose jobs are going to be ‘trimmed.’ I think when you go in with that assumption, you end up with a product that is always going to be flawed and that’s what we’re going to have to deal with for the next bit.”

L.J. Valencia —  fifth-year economics student

“To be honest, I’m partly not surprised because the UCP did what they promised and campaigned on. But then again, I’m still disappointed because we see a lot of programs being cut. For example, notwithstanding the cuts to post-secondary, there is a lot more concern in the sense that families will see property tax hikes; infrastructure projects are going to be in the hole. There is a lot more to be concerned about besides the fact that students are going to get hit — everyone is going to get hit. I think students are going to be worse off because these projects are being delayed and overall it’s disappointing. And the fact that they posted [a] four billion dollar tax cut and then imposed austerity measures doesn’t make sense.”

Travis Erickson— fourth-year industrial design student 

“I know we have the lowest post-secondary enrollment in the country, so I think it’s disheartening that there’s even less incentive to go into university now and given our economy, I don’t think you’re going to be able to maintain wealth without getting an education. It’s going to be an interesting dilemma…. (Talking about increased grants for trade school) I feel like you’re region locked because, with a lot of trade schools, you can’t do anything out of Alberta because it’s so localized. I get their incentive to keep people in the province, but I don’t think it’s great in the big picture. Something tells me there aren’t a lot of university-educated people involved in this process just because there wouldn’t be cuts to it. I’m not saying that they’re uneducated, I’m just saying that if you’ve been through something like university, you would be inclined to not do that.” 

Darren Choi — third-year political science student

“There is a lot to take in with the budget because so much is happening. There were some bright spots with what the budget did for healthcare with mental health funding and the opioid crisis, but there were cuts to drug coverage for seniors and they delayed the new southside hospital till 2030. As someone who interacts with the health care system a lot, it makes me worried for the future — what are the next three years going to bring for healthcare, but also for education, [and] university. This is only the first step. Big oof with bigger oofs coming.”

Kelsey Tamura fourth-year design student

“It’ll make our future sad because people won’t invest in new research areas, all arrows are pointing towards oil and gas. Future-wise, it doesn’t seem like it’s sustainable.”

Subin Han — third-year secondary education student 

“I hate it.”