Student loans Student aid best in country
Program a victim of its own success

by Jennifer Pritchett
Northern News Services

NNSL (OCT 30/96) - The Northwest Territories boasts the best student loan and grant programs in the country ... for now.

 Charles Dent (left), minister of education, says the current program is under review because of escalating costs.

"The growth in the program is such that we have to look at the way it's run," he says. "There's no question that it's the most generous in Canada, but we only have a certain amount of dollars to work with. We have to live with that."

Over the past five years, the funding allocated to Northern students in the form of grants, remissible loans or repayable loans has doubled to more than $15 million.

More than two-thirds of that was paid out in non-repayable grants to aboriginal people last year.

With no cap on the program, and more students qualifying for funding every year, Dent says the government can't handle the growing costs.

More than 2,000 students received funding last year to attend post-secondary institutions, and 60 per cent of those were indigenous people.

The results of a report conducted last year will be discussed among cabinet members this January.

After that time, Dent says, the program may see some changes.

"We can come up with a program that can continue to serve Northern students," he says.

Rod Taylor, manager of student services for the NWT student financial assistance program, says the program works well to bring people to the North.

"A large portion of students are staying in the North or are coming back to the North either because they are getting loans remised or are Northerners anyway," he says.

"It provides benefits to long-term Northerners."

But like Dent, Taylor concludes that the costly program can't sustain itself if it continues to grow.

"How do we both continue to serve Northerners and maintain some control over the amount?" he asks. "These two things have to be balanced."

The program has five divisions that offer funding to aboriginal people and non-indigenous people. Funding for non-aboriginal people is based on the number of years they've lived in the North.

Taylor says that the program not only brings people back to the North after their training, but many of the students receive their education in the NWT.

Almost as many are studying in the NWT - 43 per cent - as down South.

But there isn't any real evidence the program is keeping people in the North after their training is completed.

The government doesn't have a system that tracks people after they've received grants to see if they stay in the North.

Still, Taylor says people who work in the regions say the program is keeping people in the NWT.

"It's a key vehicle to employing people in the North," he says.