Note 5: Assessing Aid

This post is part of a week-long series.

One of the values on which the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation based their program was "to deliver aid to under-represented students who appear to be under-served by the existing financial aid system." Surprisingly, these under-represented students are those from low-income families.

The assumption that grants are already targeted to low-income students through existing financial aid architecture appears to be incorrect.

Part of this seems to lie in the cost-conscious nature of low-income students, and part in students' dependency statuses.

The need-based system tends to favour those who are considered independent, despite research indicating that many still receive funding from their parents. Moreover, low-income students tend to enrol in less expensive programs, live at home, and work during school, all to reduce their costs. Hence, they miss out. In fact:

Almost 60% of the $1.07 billion spent on grants in 2001 was provided to individuals from the top two income quartiles.

Which is why the Millennium access bursaries were created. By complementing the needs-based system, the access bursaries were meant to fill the gaps in student aid.

Now, as we look to 2009-2010 when the Canada Student Grant Program will replace Millennium, we are faced with a consolidation of federal grant programs. What this entails is not yet clear, but there is certainly a concern that not all students' needs will be met, especially the under-represented. And with no funding in place to continue research, we are already missing the studies and pilot projects meant to identify those very needs.