Student associations address financial aid delays in open letter

On September 24, nine student associations from seven universities across Alberta signed and sent a letter to Minister of Advanced Education, Rajan Sawhney, regarding “timely financial aid” for students. University of Alberta Students’ Union (UASU) President Lisa Glock was among the signatories.

According to an Alberta Advanced Education spokesperson, this year Alberta Student Aid received a record number of applications. Processing for around three per cent of applications have exceeded the 45-day service standard.

According to Glock, delayed financial aid can cause a lot of stress for students. She said that many students rely on student loans for both their bill payments and tuition costs.

“It can be really stressful, [even] putting a strain on your mental health,” Glock said. 

The UASU has been working with the U of A to “make sure that [students] won’t face penalties for loan delays,” Glock said. 

“This is the second year in a row that we’ve faced these delays,” Glock says  

According to Glock, the UASU has a history of working with students’ unions and graduate students’ associations across the province. 

Seven of the nine signatories were students’ union presidents for different universities across Alberta. The remaining two signatories were presidents of graduate students’ associations at the U of A and the University of Lethbridge.

“We weren’t just signatories, we were involved in the writing process,” Glock said. 

The letter is meant to push the government and Alberta Student Aid to address the reason for these delays as well as to create a plan to ensure they do not happen again. 

“We wanted to focus on the fact that this is the second year in a row we’ve faced these delays. We wanted to make sure to highlight those systemic long-term changes [and ask] the ministry for that proactive plan for 2025,” Glock said. 

According to Glock, these delays “erode trust in the student loan process and might have provided a risk for future access and participation from [students].” This was a provincial concern across all of Alberta’s student bodies, she said. 

The letter “shows solidarity between students across the province,” Glock says 

This letter is important in a couple different ways, Glock said. One way is that ”it shows solidarity between students across the province.” Collaborating with other universities has set a precedent for working together on issues, she said. 

“It’s not just the UASU saying ‘we’re experiencing this issue.’ It’s Calgary, Lethbridge, MacEwan, graduate students’ associations, SAIT. All of us facing the same issue and showing that we’re speaking with a united voice.” 

Glock said she wants this letter to inspire “structural change” in the financial aid system. 

“I want to see them putting effort towards ensuring the prevention of this [in the] next year. We want to know earlier how the process is going to work.”