June 21, 2020

"Power has only one duty - to secure the social welfare of the People."

(Benjamin Disraeli)

Hello; Bonjour, Hola, Guten Tag, Zdravstvuyte,  Nǐ hǎo, Ciao, Konnichiwa, Olá, Anyoung haseyo, Asalaam alaikum,  Goedendag, Yassas, Dzień dobry, Selamat siang, Namaste,  Merhaba, Shalom and any and all other forms of greetings from Trent University’s diverse student population.

Today not only myself but other Trent students, parents, alumni and concerned individuals come to you and implore you to listen to what we have to say. Today we come to you not as enemies but as a community who wants answers and support. It is our job as students to ask these questions and to question the narrative around us. A campus is the place where ideas are born and shared, and that is why we come wanting to know why our university has not offered us the students enough support, asking why they think that they can go without accountability, asking why you push this false narrative and expect us to fall in line. All of us deserve answers, it is your own policy to be open and transparent so why is it you have so far been nothing but the opposite? Things often are not as they appear to be and I think you should take time to reflect on how you want to be perceived by this community. This letter will deal with the financial struggles that every day students are going to face in the 2020-2021 academic year and how this institution has offered no remorse, no help and no feasible way for a student to afford this and yet instead they say “We believe that students will not struggle this year” and list a number of equivocated “answers” to push this notion that everything is fine when it is not. We come to you because there are those of us who are struggling, students are genuinely concerned and worried about this school year. Your administration has not only failed at giving the needed resources and help, but has also been profiteering off of these circumstances. I think I speak for all when I say that we, as a community, as friends, as classmates, as Trent family, will not watch as others struggle, we will always offer a helping hand to those in need, and speak up for those whose voices are not being heard.

 

 

“Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we've been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”

(Barack Obama)

 

 

 

I want to start off with, thank you in advance for listening and taking the time to read this and hopefully after thoughtful discussion and compromise we will be able to come to an understanding and come to a solution. I believe in cooperation and am confident that you will agree that the current situation is not acceptable and kindly ask you to address this problem by taking the necessary actions for the sake of many Trent students. In addition I think that I not only speak for myself but most of the Trent community, we want to work with you not against you we fully realize that at the end of the day Trent University is a business, it has to make a profit, which is understandable, but, companies are also expected to have corporate social responsibility and maintain an ethical standard, by you neglecting to help us, the customer, you are failing to realize that it is us who pays you, it is us who chooses to go to Trent, you are one out of many institutions and I caution you to remember that. I would also like to establish the fact that this is not my first letter, this is in fact the third time I am writing to you and yet I still have not had a single response, I am immensely disappointed if this is a reflection of Trent University’s professional and academic standard, it is almost shameful that an institution that prides itself with freedom of thought, expression, diversity and academic integrity has so shamelessly swept this under the rug and continued to remain silent. We will stand up for each other and always speak up for what we think is right or what we perceive to be an injustice. Myself and others think that Trent is not doing enough to support international and domestic students in this blatant act of what some may call greed. I pose the following questions to you;

 

What is Trent University doing to help students?

    What Are you doing for low income students

    What are you doing for international students

Does Trent University plan on lowering costs?

    Are you going to lower meal plan costs?

    Are you going to lower dorm costs

    Are you going to lower fees because we are not allowed access to certain facilities or having the same experience as previous years

It is your own policy to be open and transparent so why is it you have so far been nothing but the opposite?

        Why have you been using misleading data and information?

        Why will you not reply to emails sent to you regarding this important topic?

        Will Trent agree to an audit conducted by TSCA and student officials

with OSAP taking so many massive cuts how can it come close to helping students afford what they need?

        Will Trent be increasing scholarships and bursaries?

        Will Trent increase the eligibility for scholarships and bursaries?

        Times are extremely tough so how can our parents contribute to our schooling?

       

One of the points for financial aid that the university suggests is OSAP. As you may know when the new Provincial Conservative government came into power they cut OSAP funding for some students by 80% and cut the threshold for financial aid among students whose parents income is more than $140,000, they increased loans and decreased grants, low income students can no longer get grants large enough to cover tuition and they cut OSAP funding of up to $2,000,000,000 annually, with OSAP taking so many massive cuts how can it come close to helping students afford what they need? Even with the increase of funding for 2020-2021 the maximum amount of funding you receive is $24,000 and that is when you qualify for mostly everything, to put this into perspective a single parent with 3 dependant children who makes 54,000 annually is estimated at about $15,000 so getting to that $24,000 threshold is very, very limited, in addition students can easily qualify for less than $15,000. So what is Trent University doing to address this problem? How are you going to help low income students go to university? When living away from home the average cost per academic year is $23,000-24,000 and numbers only go upwards from there not including other expenses like cars, travel, activities, phone plan and any other purchases. Compared to other universities such as Brock, Windsor, Wilfred Laurier Trent has relatively high prices for dorms and tuition costs, does Trent plan on lowering these costs? OSAP is based on parental contribution which I am not sure if this is news to you but news flash, not all students get money from their parents. Times are extremely tough so how can our parents contribute to our schooling? Low income students realistically cannot afford to pay for these prices and even middle class families will struggle with this. 

“A man is worked upon by what he works on. He may carve out his circumstances, but his circumstances will carve him out as well.” (Frederick Douglass)

In your financial aid page for “Your Student Budget” you say that there should be family contribution, I am here to tell you the truth of it, not all students get help from their parents or family, that is just the reality of things during these unprecedented times when families are struggling to meet ends meet and having to defer mortgage payments and skipping on this week's groceries you seem to have the audacity to say that these people can somehow magically afford their students tuition after losing their job. There are countless personal circumstances that can prevent a student from getting any money from their parents. Yet you insist on this notion that $3,000 is to come from personal savings and family contributions. As a solution you offer jobs as a plausible solution, unfortunately that is not the case. With the province shut down and only select businesses reopening how can you guarantee a job? The answer is you cannot. Students will have to compete not only with other students but also Peterbourough and Durham residence to get the limited number of job opportunities, usually on campus jobs would be available but the university has made clear that limited visits will be allowed and limited food services will be available, this includes other on campus jobs will also either be closed, not hiring or on limited hours, some students also do not have means of transportation, with new Covid 19 restrictions bus routes have changed with less routes and not as many passengers per bus, this limits the students opportunities to find a job outside of Trent and makes it unlikely to get a job outside Peterborough. Students have also lost their current jobs or summer jobs they had been anticipating not allowing them to budget or save for school includes as stated previously their parents too many have also lost their jobs. 

 

With no job and no prospect of getting a job a student cannot afford to pay these highway robbery prices that the university has currently, even IF you got $15,000 from OSAP and are living away from home you still are $7,000-8,000 off assuming your parents or yourself had saved $1,000  from previous employment.(CERB is not included because it only represents a fraction of the student populus and was not specifically intended for all students unlike CESB) CESB the benefit intended for Canadian students offers most students $1,250 a month from May-August which is a total of $5,000 you can receive. This money if the student applied for it could need to be spent elsewhere during this pandemic, and if it is indeed intended for school, students will need to spend portions of this money on residence deposits, tuition deposits, school supplies such as a laptop and more. It would be incredibly irresponsible to presume that all students got this benefit, as we know some fell through the cracks as echoed by members of parliament. CESB was not designed to do anything more than contribute minor financial aid to students, the program was not designed to be a key factor in paying for school but a subsidy to prop you up and help you out with the addition of other resources. 

 

The final solution you offer for our financial aid is scholarships and bursaries again in your “Your Student Budget”you say that entrance scholarships are with an asterisks going to pay for $3,000 of the cost for university. This is by far the most reaching statement the university has claimed so far, a student coming from highschool would have to have a total of a 95% average or above to get $3,000 . An 80% average which is more likely of the two is only 1,000. Most programs at Trent only need a 70%-75% to get accepted so I'm not sure how the university thinks that all of us students are getting 95% averages, i’ll admit there was an asterisks beside that number, but it is very misleading to have it on there $1,000 is by far more likely and going to apply to more students, but instead you try to mislead us into thinking that this is somehow going to be affordable. You also offer bursaries as a solution, the general bursary which applies to the most students only offers $500-1,000 which on the “How to Finance your Education” website  it shows the price for the bursary to be 1,500 so I am assuming that Trent not only thinks we are scholars with 95% averages but also varsity athletes to get the $1,500 bursary considering there is no asterisks next to this number that must be the case. It also has to be said that yet again not all students qualify for the bursary as it is dependent on financial aid. 

When adding S1,000 from family savings, $3,000 assuming you bought a very cheap laptop and virtually no school supplies, $1,000 entrance scholarship and $1,000 bursary some quick math (giving the university a favourable position) only amounts to $21,000 that is $3,000 off from the base average fees and those expenses only go up. Even assuming you got a job hours would not be the same and limited service would be given, you say regularly a job would pay for $3,000 so even if we halve that to compensate for lack of hours you still are not making enough money. There is still more to cover though, this is only what the university has said they have done, we have yet to cover what they have not done.

 

The university has failed and is continuing to fail to meet the  standards and needs of all of her students, not only by the said actions you are taking which are few and too far inbetween to fallacies and exaggerations but the university is also actively trying to take advantage of this situation. Recently it has been made clear to us by the university president in an announcement that only single dorm rooms will be available to do Covid 19 health and safety restrictions, although this idea may seem beneficial they are clearly taking advantage of this, as we all know a single room is the most expensive room available to students. Instead of lowering room costs to accommodate our miss fortune you double down and exploit us by keeping single rooms at a cost of $12,000-13,000 can you please explain to us the students how that is remotely fair or just? The reality is that the world is not fair, and decisions like this is what drives that narrative. You purposely have used this to make as much money as possible. It is also mentioned that food services will be limited, if so why are we paying the exact same price as last year's food plan for $4,500 when our options and food will be very limited by choice and timeframe. This is almost extortion seeing as you’ve now forced our hand, many students were hoping to stay home and work from online but seeing as you have made many classes mandatory to attend this is forcing us to live in these overpriced rooms and buy overpriced meal plans. There is absolutely no logical way you can tell us students that the 2020-2021 academic year will be as same as last years, that is complete nonsense. We will be having online classes, many classes are not being offered, social interaction is limited, college events and activities are limited, business operations will remain closed or limited, I can 100% say that the quality of the education will not be the same with no fault to that of the professor. Some students extremely struggle with online classes, they prefer in class being able to interact and talk to the professor or see hands-on explanations. Yet you still have tuition at the same rate and price. The differences in services, education, activities and experience is blatantly apparent so this again plays into my point that you are exploiting the situation before you in order to make a quick buck off of desperate students.

 

 The sad thing is that I have not even touched on our international students yet. Right now international students at Trent are suffering and this institution, this province and this country have all turned their backs to them. Some international students are living on campus, some had to find an overpriced house/apartment off campus as they simply could not afford to live on campus, knowing that the landlords have obviously taken advantage of their situation with nowhere else to go. Most do not have a car, and barely have money so it is hard to get around, they do not have money for groceries, since they are international students they did not get CESB, help from the university, OSAP or any new funding towards scholarships and bursaries. They cannot find jobs as they are international students who do not have a work visa, who face discrimination not only because they are international but because an employer much rather hire someone they know is not going to leave the country and that is just the sad truth. Ontop of all of that the university still expects them to pay 12,000 for tuition. These students may come from places that were more greatly affected by Covid 19 than Canada, unfortunately, not every place also offered the same benefits like CERB and CESB to citizens, their parents have been laid off with no work their country may not even have a form of unemployment insurance, yet these parents scrounge every penny they have to send their kids away so they can have a good education and future and you simply turn your backs on them and ignore them? 

 

“A house divided upon itself cannot stand”

(Abraham Lincoln)

In conclusion Trent University is not is not upholding its standard of excellence that this community deserves, I think I can honestly say that most of us love Trent, we love our campuses, we love the people and we love our faculty, but this, this is an affront to your institution, this lack of empathy and understanding has caused a rift between you and the very students you proud yourself in and dedicate to, I will not deny the good Trent has done, we are not unreasonable. I will acknowledge that during these times, we have no precedence for this, this is history, people will look back at us and this will be their model if this is to happen again.  I sincerely hope that we have proven to you that we have many students at risk here. It is foolish and irresponsible to assume everyone got the benefits, that everyone is getting parental support, that everyone saved money or had a job, that everyone is getting the needed OSAP funding. You purposefully manipulate the numbers and then in the small side text say “these numbers may vary” or have asterisks beside a quota and not explaining to those who do not know what an asterisks mean. Students are being hit hard right now, you don’t think this is stressing us out? Our mental health is very poor right now and on top of it all we have to worry about paying for our future. It is not okay for you to change the same exact prices as last year, you cannot logically explain to us how we are getting the exact same education, experience, services and more, this is like a landlord who after he finds out you are lawyer doubled your rent when your lease expires, you are that landlord. Our international students cannot go home, cannot see their family, have no money, no aid and still have been offered no support by the university.  I hope that our pleas do not fall on deaf ears for the third time. Thank you for listening,

Student Voice

References

Bond, M. (2019, June 20). Students take to social media to share differences in OSAP allocation following provincial cuts. Retrieved from https://toronto.citynews.ca/2019/06/20/students-take-to-social-media-to-share-difference-in-osap-allocation-following-provincial-cuts/

Canada, S. (2020, June 05). Government of Canada. Retrieved from https://www.canada.ca/en/services/benefits/education/student-aid/notice-covid-19.html

Finance Your Trent Education: Resources for Students. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.trentu.ca/studentfinances/financial-wellness/studentresources#Resources Available through Trent University

Ontario Works. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.ontario.ca/page/students-special-circumstances#:~:text=Ontario Works ( OW )&text=OW provides a 100% exemption,your caseworker for more information.

Mallees, N. A., & GAZETTE, L. M. (2019, February 16). What exactly do the OSAP changes mean? Retrieved from https://westerngazette.ca/news/what-exactly-do-the-osap-changes-mean/article_67585e0e-3077-11e9-98a2-7b38eeffd284.html

Trent Forward. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.trentu.ca/coronavirus/trentforward

Tuition, Scholarships and Financial Aid. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.trentu.ca/studentfinances/

Your Student Budget. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://www.trentu.ca/futurestudents/undergraduate/tuition-awards/your-student-budget