By Jennifer Colbourne (The Cascade) – Email
Print Edition: January 25, 2012
High school students shouldn’t even bother applying to UFV this year.
Each semester, the waitlists have been getting longer and longer. But I don’t need to tell you this. We all know the insanity of registration. We all know the horror stories. Students who couldn’t get into classes they needed to graduate. Students who take classes they don’t need and have no interest in just so they can enroll in enough courses to get a student loan. Students who don’t end up in enough classes, lose their student loans, and end up jobless and unable to find gainful employment.
At the same time, there are plenty of unemployed or underemployed professors. But it’s like pulling teeth to get the school to open more courses. As for the school, they’re under serious budget constraints and need more money from the government. As for the government, they’ve got their own budgets to slash. Basically, it’s one big chain of not-enough-money.
Happy recession, folks!
There’s no easy answer to this problem. But the sad reality is that students are suffering. Students are unable to learn, and that’s a tragedy. We should be celebrating that the doors are bursting with students eager to get into classes. Instead, we’re all just hoping the problem will go away. It’s not going to get any easier, though.
See, when the recession first hit, young people realized there were no jobs. So they took the opportunity to go to school. Thus, each subsequent year, high school students graduate, find there are no jobs, and go to university. Now we’re filling up to the bursting point. First and second year students barely have a hope of getting into classes they want. If you don’t have a registration date in the first week, you are certain to be waitlisted. Registration is discouraging, not exciting.
The great irony is that when you finally graduate, you can’t find a job and you’re stuck with student loans and high interest rates to pay off.
So what should we do? Though, as per usual, our university hasn’t been putting up much of a stink, the Where’s The Funding (WTF) campaign started last semester to fight on students’ behalf. It sort of feels like a hopeless screaming match, though, as we stand alongside all the other groups demanding money. Still, it is important that we let our needs be known. It isn’t too much to ask UFV that a few more courses be added. It isn’t too much to ask that the government lower student loan interest rates. We should at least fight the small battles, but I wouldn’t hold out hope that we’ll win the war anytime soon.
The struggles that students are experiencing right now are just one block in the tumbling line of dominos we call our economy. First, the youth lost their jobs. Now, we’re losing school. Will we lose our futures too? The number of students I know who are working at a Tim Hortons with a bachelor’s degree can attest to that possibility.
The shit is going to hit the fan sooner or later. It’s time to ask yourself the question: what are you going to do? Something has to give.
