Province appears to back down, student transit passes will stay mandatory

The Ontario provincial government appears to be backing down on a plan toallow post-secondary students to opt out of the portion of their student fees that includes a transit pass.

Merrilee Fullerton, minister of training, colleges and universities, tweeted last week that the government will make the change.

"Hearing from stakeholders, it is clear that transit passes need to be considered mandatory under our Student Choice Initiative," she said on Twitter.

In January, the province announced changes to university funding that would allow students to opt out of various ancillary fees.

Danny Chang, vice-president of Western's University Student Council (USC), praised the government's move to keep transit passes mandatory. He said allowing students to opt out would have effectively killed USC'sdeal with theLondon Transit Commission (LTC), which provides transit passes for every student.

"This is fantastic news," said Chang. "Students constantly say that the number one service we provide is the transit pass."

He said providing passes as part of the ancillary fees saves each student more than$700 a year.

Chang said if students were allowed to opt ou en masse, it would undermine the USC's ability to negotiate a good price for the transit passes.

Right now, each Western and FanshaweCollege student receives a free pass as part of their ancillary student fees.

LTC general managerKellyPalecznywarned last week that allowing students to opt out of transit passes would eliminate an important source of ridership and revenue for London's transit system.

Right now there are about 53,000 students in London that provide the LTC with an annual guaranteed revenue of about $12.7 million.

The changes to student fees were part of a package of changes announced in January that brought cuts to tuition and changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program.

Student groups have opposed the changes, saying they will reduce accessibility to post-secondary education for lower-income students and make it harder for them to access student loans. Many student groups also worry that allowing students to opt-out of ancillary fees will remove funding sources for supports and services students rely on, everything from counselling to student newspapers.