BC Student and Family Affordability Fund Facing Cuts
Photo Credit: Nick Procaylo/The Vancouver Sun
The Student and Family Affordability Fund, used for schools to afford essential student supplies outside of their budget, was cancelled by the BC provincial government in late August of this year.
The fund was first rolled out in 2022 as a one-time endowment of $60 million to help schools in the aftermath of COVID-19, but was later renewed for $20 million in March 2024, to help with continued falling school budgets across the province.
In March 2024, Langford-Juan de Fuca NDP MLA Ravi Parmar called the fund “transformative” for schools in his district, according to The Tyee. He shared that he was “eager to see how schools will further utilize this expanded funding to help our kids be the best they can be.”
However, the fund is no longer in action. When the BC government announced in March 2024 that they were renewing the fund, nothing was mentioned about its temporary nature, reported The Tyee.
This decision affects hundreds of thousands of students across the province. As per The Tyee, school districts across BC used the money from the fund to support their more specialized or smaller schools, many of which may now be unable to purchase needed school resources without the fund. Furthermore, the Vancouver School Board (VSB) wasn't providing money for struggling parents this year due to the loss of the fund, leaving some students with a lack of necessary materials.
In an exclusive comment to The Nest, a spokesperson for Lisa Beare, Minister of Child Care and Education explained more about why the fund was cut. “The Student and Family Affordability fund was created as a temporary targeted funding measure to help families in response to both COVID-19 and inflationary pressures at that time.” They added that temporary funding measures “generally take place when there is a budget surplus and significant need is identified.”
This cut comes as BC’s provincial debt reaches $11.6 billion. This is in stark comparison to 2023, when BC had a $3.6 billion budget surplus and still had the fund in action, as per The Fraser Institute.
The Minister of Education also mentioned other fundraising programs that BC is currently implementing to provide ongoing stable support for families with children in K-12. For instance, the province made the largest-ever investment in school food programs in history in 2023, investing $214 million over three years to go towards Feeding Futures. Feeding Futures provides healthy, nutritious food to hundreds of thousands of families across the province, and mostly affects food quality, not price. Furthermore, the Minister says schools are set to receive $8.2 billion in funding, which includes special grants like Community LINK and Equity of Opportunity grants.