Letter of the Day | The burden of financing tertiary education

THE EDITOR, Sir:

Senator Ruel Reid has reported that the Ministry of Education, Youth and Information (MOEYI) discovered that many University of the West Indies students experiencing problems with paying their tuition fees "simply wanted a free pass to complete their studies". This is simply not the case.

While the reality exists where some students would receive accommodation to sit their final exams in the past and had no obligation to the university thereafter, this idea deduced by the MOEYI is indeed dangerous and negates several realities.

There are students on the fringes who would desire to access the services offered by the Students' Loan Bureau (SLB) but truly can't because they lack guarantors with 'suitable' employment to be accepted by the system. The realities that face graduates of the university are harsh and include being in entry level positions with remuneration that cannot adequately repay student debt of $3 million to $5 million, in the case of law students, while earning a figure of $100,000. How do we expect them to survive?

Let us not forget, there are students at other tertiary institutions that are not poised to receive funding like the University of West Indies. Our society has done a great disservice to students of the Arts, especially those at the Edna Manley College of the Visual & Performing Arts.

Costs ballooning

Annual costs to attend the college range from $350,000 to $400,000, and this does not include monies for materials, clothes to train in, transportation, food, and for survival. It's uncanny to note that these are the same students many of the ministers of government and the wider public wish to perform at events, create works of art and coordinate arts events, for little or nothing. Our efforts at diversifying the range of scholarship opportunities for these students and shifting the burden from corporate entities, who play a significant role in funding these students, is slow.

Let us not forget our students at teachers' colleges, and other institutions providing tertiary education.

The burden of student financing affects all, and to simply dream of soft tactics and tell them to create a financial plan is pathetic. Alas, what can we expect from a minister who has misrepresented figures and confused the masses about financing education at the secondary level?

Mikhail Williams

Youth Advocate