Eve Chamberlain did not know that the EI program for students was stopped until her friend called her in tears.
“I felt like the government was making it even harder for me to be able to go to college,” he said Friday. “I immediately felt stress and panic about what I was going to do so I could afford to do it next year.”
Chamberlain used the New Brunswick Employment Insurance Connection program to help fund his living expenses while studying mechanical engineering at the University of Moncton.
The program allowed people who had worked enough hours in summer jobs to be eligible for employment insurance benefits to access them while in college or other full-time training.
Chamberlain said her friend told her that the University of Moncton student federation sent an email explaining the situation.
Eve Chamberlain initiated a petition in hopes of restoring New Brunswick’s Connection employment insurance program. (Submitted by Eve Chamberlain)
He immediately knew he had to take action.
“I told myself I had nothing to lose by trying to initiate a petition,” Chamberlain said. “I never expected him to hook up so much. But that just indicates that a lot of students need this program and are willing to fight for it.”
Around 3pm on Friday, the petition had more than 12,000 signatures. Chamberlain said she was overwhelmed by the response.
When the petition has 15,000 names, Chamberlain plans to attach it to a formal letter he will write to the New Brunswick government.
How did the students find out?
The Department of Post-Secondary Education, Training and Employment did not make a public announcement of the cut, and chose to send an email to some undisclosed recipients.
The U group of M students was one of them. Jean-Sebastien Leger, the president, said that after the email arrived Thursday morning, he with the provincial department shortly after with other representatives of other student unions.
Jean-Sebastien Leger, president of the U of M student federation, said the decision to drop out of the program could further worsen the shortage of workers in some fields. (Submitted by Anthony Doiron)
“We were very concerned about the impact that students will have across their province,” Leger said.
“We are quite concerned about the impact on the accessibility and ability of students, especially students from rural New Brunswick, on whether they will be able to attend post-secondary education.”
Leger said the federation decided to post its own news release, which was shared on Facebook and emailed to students.
He predicted that the cut will worsen labor shortages in fields such as nursing. Nursing internships are unpaid and students often depend on EI provision for living expenses.
“Because of internships, they can’t work 16 weeks in the summer, which is another crisis in their financial capacity,” he said.
More debt
Leger said the average debt of a New Brunswick graduate is $ 40,000, and that it will increase without the IS program.
Maggie Hildebrand, a student at U’s M, already has a mortgage with her long-term partner, so the debt isn’t new. But this is the first time he will have to take on a student loan debt.
“I don’t currently have any family support for college, so I applied for a student loan,” he said. “I’m currently trying to find as many scholarships as I can, but that’s like playing a lottery.”
Maggie Hildebrand said she wanted to continue her studies after graduation, but she doesn’t know if she will be able to do it now. (Submitted by Maggie Hildebrand)
Hildebrand said he did not qualify for a student loan for a while because of his family’s income, but now he does.
Hildebrand wanted to continue his training after his degree. She wants to go to health care, so she was considering a master’s or nursing or medicine faculty.
“I really wonder if I can afford these options or not.”
Students talk
Hildebrand said he was incredulous when he heard about the program and went to the government website to confirm it. There was nothing there.
She said she and her friends contacted local politicians.
“We’re students, we’re their constituents from different MPs, I hope they take it seriously,” Hildebrand said. “I hope they try to reconsider and decide if that’s really in the best interest of the students.”
Why not find a job?
Hildebrand, at the beginning of his career in premedicine, took seven or eight classes per semester, more classes than the five required to qualify as a full-time student.
He said it was simply not possible to work at the same time as school.
This year, Hildebrand has only done one full course and has not overloaded, so she has been able to get a job as a tutor. He only earned $ 69 every two weeks, so he still earned EI. Before the pandemic, its EI was about $ 5,000 a year, but during the pandemic, profits doubled over a year, so in 2021 it received about $ 12,000.
He said the amount he received from IS depends on the year and what he earned over the summer. Hildebrand always worked full time or more in the summers.
Response of the province
Paul Bradley, acting director of communications for postsecondary education, said the change aligns New Brunswick practices with other provinces.
He said EI was never intended to fund post-secondary education or serve as a form of aid for students.
He said the NB-EI Connect program was outside the federal government’s eligibility criteria for EI benefits.
“We’ve heard from many employers who are desperate for workers, especially those in the hospitality industry and services who would traditionally have access to students working part-time,” Bradley wrote.
Letting go
Some students who had used the EI program now have to make difficult decisions.
Kayleigh Brewer, applied for a loan to go to Dalhousie University, but it wasn’t much. He said that if a student’s parents are supposed to earn a certain amount of money, they will contribute to their child’s college payments, but that was not the case for Brewer.
“I was very devastated because for me, this program meant I could go to school,” she said. “Without him, I would have had to give up.”
Brewer said the coming weeks will be difficult as he finds out what to do.
“It gets very stressful because you’re in an environment where you’re just trying to start your life, you’re trying to get a better education, you’re trying to start being independent,” Brewer said.