PEI Government Announces Ongoing Commitment to Screw Over University Students Really Bad

by Adam GALLANT

Prince Edward §Island’s Minister of Education Jeff Lantz announced on Thursday, April 4th the PEI government’s “ongoing commit- ment to screw over university students really bad.”

The University of Prince Edward Island, PEI’s only university, is heavily affected by such a commit- ment. The commitment effectively seals UPEI’s fate of being underfund- ed for yet another year and years to come, despite the fact that UPEI is in need of money to pay for new facili- ties and for repairs to existing facili- ties.

“We just can’t afford to be handing out any more money to peo- ple who are trying to improve them- selves intellectually. We have to look towards spending our money where it will do the most good, and right now that’s not on the future doctors, nurs- es, lawyers, scientists, artists, teach- ers, and engineers of this great coun- try.”

Pat Mella, PEI’s Provincial Treasurer, supported Lantz’s announcement.“We all know that uni- versity education’s purpose should be to make young people employable,”said Mella, “but we also know that in today’s economic cli- mate, people with bachelor’s degrees are working in fast food restaurants and convenience stores. So why not

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put our money towards creating jobs at seasonal, but high-class, golf resorts and stressful, but somewhat well-pay- ing, call centres?”

Lantz stated that he is not con- cerned about student reaction to his announced commitment. “Most stu- dents won’t even know about [the commitment], and the few who do know won’t bother to do anything about it.”

“Most university students don’t care enough about ‘their educa- tion to do anything about it, so [the PEI government] might as well not do anything to help them,” added Lantz. “After all, what would be in it for us?

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Most university students don’t even vote.”

When asked if he thought stu- dent apathy was, in fact, caused by a lack of time to voice protest due in part to the fact that many students have to work long hours each week to pay for the rising costs of their educa- tion, Lantz said, “Nah, they’re just lazy.”

This point of view about uni- versity students is typical around Canada. When recently asked for comment on the rising costs of post- secondary education, Canadian Prime Minister Jean Chretien said, “If we lowered tuition, the university stu-

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dents would just spend the money they save on drinking the beers*and smok- * ing the pots, so there’s no point.”

Contrary to Lantz’s belief, there are, in fact, students who are upset about Lantz’s commitment. Vanessa Baker, a third-year Business major said, “My education is already too expensive and now they’re saying they not only don’t want to help us, but want to ‘screw’ us out of our money? My professor taught me that’s what credit card companies are for, not governments.”

In order to keep some sem- blance of benevolence toward univer- sity students, Lantz pointed out that there were some initiatives on the gov- ernment’s part to help out students in need. “We do pay out bursaries to some students with staggeringly high student loans,” said Lantz. “We don’t want students to get so far in the hole that they declare personal bankruptcy to get rid of their debts. We need to get that money back.”

The future of post-secondary education is grim, observed fourth- year Psychology major Kenneth Brown. “Pretty soon university educa- tion is just going to be for the sons and daughters of really rich people or the keeners in high school who get entrance scholarships. It’s not fair for the rest of us who just want to slide by.”

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