The federal budget will reduce floating student loan interest from prime plus 2.5 percent to just the prime rate. The fixed interest rate will be decreased from prime plus five per cent to prime plus two per cent.
Finance Minister Carole James announced today that the BC government will eliminate all interest on provincial student loans, effective immediately. The decision follows the lead from Manitoba, Newfoundland and Labrador, Prince Edward Island and Nova Scotia.
“You don't think that you're going to have to have a special budget to buy special clothes that you have to wear for various events that the school puts on."
Last night, UBC’s Green College hosted a talk between Vancouver activists Jean Swanson, Ivan Drury, Lama Mugabo and Wes Everaars — all of whom have had first-hand experiences working to mitigate the city’s housing crisis.
At today’s general meeting, 8 out of 21 Board members voted against domestic increases. Only two Board members — both faculty representatives — voted against last year’s annual tuition increases.
The university is continuing to create a government business enterprise (GBE), an entirely separate trust that would let UBC circumvent the caps of provincial borrowing and build student housing at an accelerated rate.
For a year, UBC has been researching a new equity sharing ownership model where the university would “co-invest” in a market-level unit — both off campus and resale units on campus — with a faculty member.
Following the conclusion of a five-year review of the Housing Action Plan (HAP) earlier this year, UBC brought the topic to the Board of Governors again in September for updates about the Prescribed Interest Rate Loan (PIRL) program and the rent-geared-to-income (RGI) program.
At the beginning of this year, the AMS saw food outlets Pie R Squared, Ph T and the Pit performing 7.2 per cent, 27.6 per cent and 46.5 per cent worse than budgeted, respectively.
In an interview with The Ubyssey, VP External Relations Philip Steenkamp said the university is willing to contribute land, increase on-campus development charges, provide conventional financial funding or a mix of all three. Accordingly, it will not affect funding related to “UBC’s academic mission.”
The AMS has once again raised concern about “botched consultation” from UBC. This time, the issue is over the five-year review of the Housing Action Plan (HAP) — a process that also highlighted gaps in student housing strategies from the society’s perspective.
