You are 19 years old. Four years ago, you and your family fled the civil war in your home country, after your uncle and two cousins were murdered by the paramilitaries. Through a combination of resourcefulness, luck and the kindness of strangers, you made it to Canada, where you and your family were recognized as refugees. You applied for permanent resident status. You have been told that, as a refugee, you will almost certainly get permanent resident status, but it will take a while.

In the meantime, your parents found work and you and your siblings went to school. You made friends, got a part-time job, joined the basketball team. In June, you completed high school. Your three best friends are all starting at the same university this week. You were accepted, too (you are a math whiz), but because you don't have permanent resident status yet, you are not eligible for a student loan. And without a loan, there's no way you can afford to study. So you are looking for a job. And you wonder what kind of a future you have.

It is common wisdom that it takes a college or university education to get a good job. As Human Resources Development Canada puts it, "Post-secondary education is already required for most of the new jobs in today's economy and will be demanded for almost all new jobs in the 21st century. For those without a post-secondary education, employment prospects are dimming rapidly." To ensure access for all Canadians, Ottawa and the provinces run student loans programs to enable students who otherwise might not be able to afford post-secondary education to get a diploma or degree.

Of course, education is about more than simply getting a good job; it is a pillar of social and economic development. And it is also a fundamental human right, included in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Domestically, while the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms says nothing directly about access to education, the guarantee of equality under Section 15 clearly requires that access be equally available to all.

So, where do recognized refugees fit into this picture?

Under the Canada Student Financial Assistance Act, to qualify for a student loan you must be either a permanent resident of Canada, or a Canadian citizen. Refugees, even after they have been granted permission to remain in Canada, are therefore excluded from the loans scheme until they are granted permanent resident status.

In today's environment of skyrocketing tuition costs - ranging from the national average of $3,733 for an undergraduate year to the University of Toronto law school's preposterous $22,000 tuition target, not to mention the cost of books and living expenses - few Canadian-born students, let alone refugees, can finance their own way through university or college. The exclusion from student loans programs therefore effectively puts higher education out of reach for refugees. As the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights observed in its 1998 report on Canada: "The committee is concerned that loan programs for post-secondary education are available only to Canadian citizens and permanent residents and that recognized refugees who do not have permanent residence status, as well as asylum-seekers, are ineligible for these loan programs..."

There is no good reason for maintaining this exclusion; it is simply counterproductive to Canada's own social and economic goals to delay or deny access to post-secondary studies. Refugees, once they have been recognized as such by the Immigration and Refugee Board, are in Canada to stay. By making refugees wait until they have been granted permanent resident status, we simply delay their entry into full participation in Canadian society and the economy, or we sentence them to low-paying, low-status jobs. We also lose out on the perspective that they, as survivors, can bring to the classroom.

Nor is cost a significant barrier. The Canada Student Loans Program currently lends $1.6 billion per year to post-secondary students across the country. Because the population of refugees waiting for permanent resident status is relatively small, the cost of making loans available to them would be approximately $4.5 million - or an increase of just 0.26 per cent. Moreover, considering the high repayment rate of a loan fund serving the same population - the Immigrant Loan Program has a repayment rate of over 92 per cent - the final cost of the change would be a tiny fraction of the $4.5 million in loans.

And there is no opposition from the provinces, which have consistently indicated that they would follow Ottawa's lead.

The federal government is on record as wanting to "make post-secondary education more financially accessible to low-income Canadians." Changing the student loans legislation is one way of implementing this goal. As Liberal cabinet members hash out the next federal budget behind closed doors, let's hope they remember these vulnerable members of society.

Andrew Brouwer is a member of the executive committee of the Canadian Council for Refugees.

Reprinted from, with permission of the author, the Globe and Mail, Sept. 18, 2002.

The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of CAUT.