by Ian Elliot
Northern News Services

NNSL (Dec 03/97) - There will be fewer Northerners collecting seemingly perpetual student loans if the recommendations of an advisory committee on financial aid come to pass.

The review panel on Student Financial Assistance, set up by Education Minister Charles Dent, on Monday issued more than 50 recommendations intended to streamline the program, which provided more than $13 million in loans and grants to Northern youths pursuing post-secondary education last year.

Louise Vertes, chairwoman of the panel, said the recommendations address many concerns heard at public sessions in Yellowknife, Inuvik and Iqaluit this summer. Some 225 individuals and groups addressed the panel.

One of the concerns the committee heard was about students who take enough courses each year to qualify for student loans, but who skip from program to program and never graduate.

"One of the things that struck us is that (the program) is set up now to encourage participation in, not completion of, a program of study," Vertes said.

"You could be a student for 20 years as long as you passed the course requirements every year."

The so-called "professional students," as they were characterized at the Yellowknife session, are more a perceived abuse than a problem running rampant in the system, she stressed.

But the panel is recommending that time limits be imposed on programs of study, and no more than one change of major be permitted.

In addition, it recommends that students who drop out of school after receiving their money or fail to complete 60 per cent of a full course load be hit with some sort of penalty.

While endorsing the program overall and noting the public believes it is needed, the panel found that the program lacked a focus. It is recommending that in future, the program concentrate on providing financial assistance to students, and not counselling or other services, and it not attempt to cover 100 per cent of education expenses.

The program should target aboriginal youth and non-aboriginal youth who have completed some of their schooling in the North, the panel recommended. It also said statistics be kept to show how many students complete their programs of study. No such tracking currently takes place.

In addition, short-term apprenticeship programs may be considered for financial assistance. Now, most fail to meet the 12-week minimum cutoff.

The recommendations will be considered by Dent, who issued a statement on Monday saying that the government plans to implement changes to the program in time for the start of the 1998 school year, and that long-term changes to the program be in place by April 1999.