expects to create her own job once e is graduated - freelance editing, aching. ayler does not know, however, she will ever pay off her total dent loan doing that. She expects The Other Press to make $20,000 a year at most when she graduates. ‘Do a budget for $20,000 a year for a family with two kids,’’ she says. ‘“ After you take out groceries and rent there’s not much left.’’ 1 $25,000 in the Hole Tayler finds hidden expenses sup- porting children - medical coverage, transportation, tutors, dentists, school expenses, life insurance on herself. Tayler agrees she must pay back the loan but says the repayment scheme has to be made more realistic. She says she will not be able to make the required payments of more than $400 a month for 10 years to pay off her loan. A student loan should be an investment by the government, says Tayler. She asks why she cannot write it off her income tax returns when she graduates like business people write off business expenses. “T will send two to 10 letters a week, all of which get politely rejected.” The interest payment for students should be fixed, Tayler argues, and people applying for repeat loans while finishing graduate work should have their paperwork streamlined. Current- ly, former students pay the prime interest rate at the time they consoli- date their loan. Some students are paying almost 16 per cent interest on their loans. _November 12, 1985 Page 9 And Tayler doesn’t understand why she has to give the education ministry in Victoria the same information three times a year when she fills our her loan applications. She thinks the ministry does this to catch cheaters but she says they’re missing the real fraud anyways, only catching people who apply for more than one loan. She says whenever she waits for a reply to her loan application her stomach grinds for two months. There’s no promise that even now, when she’s on the dissertation stage of her PhD, they won’t cut her off. While she wonders about how she’II repay her student loan, life goes on. She chops wood for her stove every day and tends her garden - Tayler is counting on enormous zucchinis until mid-December. Because they cannot afford meat she feeds her family a lot of Asian food. ‘‘Like Chazuke. It’s a Japanese dish with rice, tuna, dried seaweed, spices and tea. It’s great because it gives complete protein.’’ Tayler is not worried, though. She just wishes the system was more fair. ““| guess I’m a real survivor...yeah, | am.”’ She says she has ‘‘what a friend called stick-to-itness.’’ - Debt load The student aid program in British Columbia is heading for a crisis. Byron Hender, UBC’s financial awards director, estimates that by 1987 the average debt of a student graduating with student loans will be more than $15,000, closer to $20,000. He says this May the awards office surveyed 113 graduating students and 81 per cent had debts over $8,000. Last year they surveyed 100 students graduating with debt and only 11 percent had loans over $8,000. ‘And these figures don’t even cover student loans acquired previous to UBC or private debts to banks, Increase student paid 15 per cent of his or her gross income a single parent with one child could only support a debt load of $12,000 over the repayment time period of 10 years. “Even then there’s no money left over for childcare or other payments such as medical,’’ says Hender. The elimination of the B.C. grant programme in 1983, the increase in the federal loan ceiling from $1,800 to $3,300 a year and B.C.’s high youth unemployment rate are causing a big increase in student debt, Hender says, and the problem isn’t going to go away. The student aid program in British Columbia is heading for a crisis. parents, or Visa or Mastercard.’’ He estimates the average student has more debt than the awards office knows about. Hender says that as the debt load increases, so does the default rate. “But no research is done into student debt, no study into what debt load a student can be allowed to assume.’’ He says his office did a survey of debt payment potential for the stu- dent who found a job making ‘‘20,000 a year after graduation. If that Hender, who is also president of the Canadian Association of Student Financial Aid Administrators, says his organization will ask the federal government to begin a joint federal- provincial study into loan ceilings and repayments this fall. He says even if this happens it could take at least until 1987 to implement a new programme. Henders adds, ‘’We’ll have to start looking at the ability of the student to wt pay.