New bursaries help students at ACC

Danika McDonald

arts editor

With tuition payments almost a week passed due, post-secondary students everywhere are feeling the weight of their education, in terms of cost that is.

Enter the Student Success Bursary Program, an $8-million bursary endowment committed to allotting $320,000 each year to subsidize education costs for qualifying students.

For students at Alberta College Campus, who were previously ineligible for many of the bursaries at Grant MacEwan University, the Student Success Bursary is here to help.

“(MacEwan) Fund Development approached us last year,” said Nils Holmgren, president of MacEwan’s Students’ Association (SA).

According to Holmgren, MacEwan Fund Development has a campaign to build up general MacEwan bursaries for students.

Holmgren said they asked if the SA would be willing to contribute to the new bursary.

“We had $500,000 in the trusts, already raised towards bursaries that we were willing to contribute, which then is matched by government — government dollars — and a private donor,” he said.

“Basically, our dollar became three dollars,” Holmgren laughed, explaining the private donor still remains anonymous but very much appreciated.

Since the bursary will release $320,000 each year, the idea is that it will sustain iteself forever.

“We were originally asked to contribute $1.5 million, but we said ‘we’ll do the $500,000 then we’ll run the referendum to see if we can raise the other half of the million,” Holmgren said. “The referendum then passed in this falls elections.”

As for how MacEwan plans to reestablish the funds each year, that was part of the student referendum this fall.

Students were polled to see if an extra mandatory fee of $4.50 added to tuition costs was a justifiable contribution to the continuous bursary.

“If you think about all the full-time students, over a five year period, that fee isn’t a lot of money. You don’t need (to) give a lot to make a big difference. Especially when it’s a huge group of people,” said Holmgren.

The students who participated in the online referendum saw the benefit in having their small contibution tripled in order to benefit students in financial need and they voted yes. Once the SA and Fund Development got the go ahead, they implemented the program quickly.

“By doing (the bursary program), you spread the funding out even further,” Holmgren explained, going on to state the benefits of the small contribution expanding into a larger fund.

“I haven’t received any negative feedback from it (because) the amount of money is that small and (we) also . . . see such a good return on it,” said Holmgren.

“I mean $320,000 a year in bursaries – that increase, that is already available to MacEwan students, is huge.”

If the funds collected out of student tuition do not match the needed amount each year, additional funds are contributed by MacEwan staff and faculty, alumni, donations from the general public, external donors and the government of Alberta.

It should be noted that having the government match MacEwan’s contribution is contingent on the university receiving funding from the government of Alberta’s Access to Future Fund, a significant part of the governments’ plan to help subsidize certain tuition costs.

“When I was a student, I received some bursaries,” Holmgren sympathized. “They aren’t hard to apply for but I think students need to take the effort to apply for these types of things. “

“I think sometimes we forget that the government subsidizes our education and that bursaries like this are available,” he added.

For Holmgren and the SA, they are pleased with the outcome of the bursary.

“The students decided this could happen,” Holmgren said. “I’m happy this went through. On MacEwan’s side, they’re working really hard to provide funding for students. Part of it is access. A bursary like this promotes access to post-secondary.”

If interested in applying for the Student Success Bursary, students can visit www.MacEwan.ca/scholarships for information on many scholarships, bursaries and awards, as well as to download application forms.

Applications for the Student Success Bursary will be accepted until Jan. 21, 2011 for winter semester students. The bursary will open again for applications fall 2011.