Cara Smith
writer
The Government of Alberta recently suspended the Access to the Future fund, a program that matches private donations to universities. The fund was created by the government in 2005 as a strategy to attract more community support.
Although not cancelled entirely, the program has been suspended for two years in order to fund other post-secondary projects.
The usual $45 million used for the Access to the Future fund is set to be invested in a variety of projects, including $12 million for a “Lights on Project” to open up new facilities, $20 million to address enrolment issues in the fall, $5 million to support colleges interested in offering new degree programs, $6 million for the recruitment of high end researchers and $5 million invested into special projects such as digital textbooks.
The 2011-12 budget released last week details the suspension of the program, but also the increase of $61 million to post-secondary funding. Despite this increase, many are still concerned about the impact of the Access to the Future fund.
Carol Neuman, executive director of the Alberta Students’ Executive Council (ASEC), says her organization is concerned mainly with the Access to the Future programs and how this may affect student’s ability to find and receive funding.
“Ultimately the decisions that are made in regards to institutions always affect students directly,” said Neuman. “So, when institutions aren’t getting funded to the level they need to be, it creates a bit of a financial crunch and often what happens is that students are left to pick up the tab because the institutions don’t have another way of getting funding,” she added.
According to Kim Capstick, spokesperson for Advanced Education and Technology, the government decided to invest the money normally used for the Access to the Future into what they felt were more pressing priorities for institutions.
“The Access to the Future fund is still there,” said Capstick. “We are just suspending the output of dollars for a couple of years in order to focus on other things.”
“(Access to the Future) didn’t provide for things like funding for new facilities that are opening up this year. It didn’t provide funding to address enrolment pressures. We felt that with limited dollars available to us, this year we really needed to focus all our efforts to solve some of those challenges,” said Capstick.
The impact this suspension has on students will vary widely depending on how each institution chooses to use the funding. One student at Grant MacEwan University believes the suspension will make it that much harder for students to access grants, scholarships and bursaries.
“I think (the suspension) is terrible because I think more students are going to be relying on student loans and they’re going to sink further and further into debt,” said Andrea Bomok, student at MacEwan.
“In this economy, students are devoting longer hours to their studies and their jobs. They’re balancing so many things. There just isn’t enough time in the day. The government needs to realize that students have a life too,” she added.
Although the results of the suspension are yet to be determined, Capstick says that in two years the money will be flowing again.
The government will honour the donations that were previously made and the funds will be available and waiting to be used. Unfortunately, for some students, a two-year wait just isn’t an option.
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