Students Nova Scotia joins campaign to draw attention to true price of education

Students Nova Scotia is uniting with its counterparts in New Brunswick and P.E.I. in a joint campaign to draw attention to the real price of trying to get a post-secondary education.

The “More Than Tuition” Affordability Campaign aims to point out the fees faced by students go far beyond just the cost of going to classes.

The executive director of Students Nova Scotia, Lydia Houck, said they’re also dealing with skyrocketing price tags for things like housing, textbooks, groceries and travel as they are forced to live further away from campus, and available funding isn’t keeping up with inflation.

“The Student Financial Assistance Program supports over 11,000 Nova Scotia students in accessing post-secondary education, and the maximum amount that a student can receive through that program hasn’t actually increased since 2017,” Houck told CityNews Halifax. “While costs across the board have increased pretty significantly since that time.”

“On top of that, the housing allocations set forth in that program are also set at $500 a month.”

She said it’s almost impossible to find a place to live for that amount, even outside of the city and with roommates.

Houck said these rising costs means some will not be able to get a college or university education.

“There’s so many far reaching impacts of post-secondary access and what you’re able to do with that after the fact,” she stated.

“Our goal is to ensure that every Nova Scotian who wants to access a college or university program is able to do that, and right now I think that’s not the case for a lot of folks.”