Students from across B.C. are being encouraged to inundate elected officials' inboxes, decrying a decrease in investment in post-secondary education.
The B.C. Federation of Students and the Vancouver Island University Students' Union launched the 'Cuts Suck. Fix Education' campaign on Wednesday, Sept. 17, at VIU's Nanaimo campus.
Tuition is rising and, as is the case at VIU, programs are being cut, with public funding dropping to 40 per cent of operating budgets, according to the students' unions. Meanwhile, tuition has increased by 155 per cent over the past 25 years. A return to government investment of at least 75 per cent of operating budgets is sought, and the organizations are asking students e-mail elected officials to drive home the point.
Sarah Mei Lyana, VIU students' union chairperson, said cuts are not only reducing course offerings, but are also impacting student services.
"There's longer waits for counselling services, for advising services," she said. "They've also got to wait longer to get into the programs and the courses that they need because there's fewer professors teaching the same courses … We've got reduced library hours. We've had a childcare project that was supposed to be built here, and they cancelled the entire project."
Debi Herrera Lira, B.C. Federation of Students' chairperson, attended Douglas College in New Westminster and said that while the institution has not seen program cuts, it is facing similar hardships as its Island counterparts.
"We're seeing faculty or staff positions change, layoffs, and that is going to impact students now, and is going to impact students in the future, because there will be less services," said Lira. "I remember when I was a student there, trying to get counselling would take three weeks … my student advisor would sometimes take a month, and so you can't wait that long to access those services that are imperative to students, and that didn't used to be the case."
Gara Pruesse, president of the VIU Faculty Association, says professors are feeling uneasy with VIU facing a deficit she said will be $11.6 million more than anticipated in 2025-26.
"The cuts have been so substantial that I think it's interfering with our opportunity to provide the education the students come here for and to serve the communities that we're here for, so that's damaging," she said. "Cutting services to students and courses for students is not going to solve the financial situation … because unless we have students, we don't have a future."
For more information, visit www.cutssuck.ca.
