College students deserve better than this

College students should resist the temptation to take the money and walk away. They need their education, and should hold onto it as hard as they can.

In this first chaotic week of classes after the five-week-long college teachers’ strike, it will certainly feel overwhelming to try to relearn half-forgotten skills and information, and to proceed in a compressed time frame.

Plenty of students have said they feel too demoralized to go back to school when the strike ends.

But guess what’s even more demoralizing? Working a precarious part-time job for minimum wage that doesn’t offer enough hours to keep a roof over your head.

Walking away from their chance at an education means students will have wasted at least six months of their lives. If they go back next year, they will start earning later.

The Ontario government is partly responsible for this mess, both for having dramatically underfunded colleges in the first place and for not bringing an end to the strike weeks ago. So it has a special responsibility to these students.

The government already mandated that tuition refunds be offered by colleges, and that student financial aid become more flexible and generous to cover off the fact that fall and winter semesters will now end later.

It has also forced colleges to create funds to reimburse students who have extra expenses as a result of this change in schedule. Some older students will be paying for child care now that college classes will continue almost until Christmas Day. Others will have to pay extra rent or rearrange travel plans.

Each student may draw up to $500 from the fund, but it has to be applied for and documented.

That response is inadequate and will be a bureaucratic nightmare.

Here’s what the Ontario Liberal government should do:

Take a leaf out of the book of former premier Mike Harris, who gave parents of children in publicly funded schools a $400 payout in 1997 when schoolteachers went on an unscheduled two-week strike. They were upset with the education reform plan.

Give every student $500, no questions asked, as an incentive to stay. If the student thinks there are expenses above and beyond that, he or she should be able to

apply for more.

Offer the tuition refunds, but also spend an equal amount of money on extra academic and life counselling, and on extra help for students before and after class. This will help them be successful.

These measures should not unduly punish the colleges, or else the government will simply be laying the groundwork for even worse labour struggles in the future.

Think about it: If students walk away with their tuition refund cheques, the result will be empty classrooms. If you lose a welding or nursing student who is partway through the course, no one can take his or her place. The lost revenue will hurt the college’s bottom line, sometimes for years.

The unionized college faculty went on strike, in part, to fight for a better deal for parttime teachers. Colleges need the flexibility of part-timers, because they must respond to a rapidly changing workforce. But also, they are unable to offer more generous remuneration or security of tenure while they are getting so little money from the province.

If we want to keep higher education strong, it’s going to require some major investment from the government.