Lakehead University has joined a growing initiative to support access to post-secondary education for current and former youth in care.
The university will cover the cost of tuition and fees for two new students each year under the Lakehead University Youth in Care Tuition Waiver, beginning in 2022. The support will continue through the length of a four-year undergraduate program.
Announcing the initiative Friday, Lakehead president Moira McPherson said the program fit with the school’s focus on reducing barriers to education for groups who have been traditionally been underrepresented on campus.
“Today’s announcement is about hope and opportunity,” she said. “It’s about offering youth the means to realize their unique dreams.”
McPherson was joined at Lakehead’s second campus in Orillia by Minister of Colleges and Universities Jill Dunlop for the announcement, along with several advocates for youth in care who have helped push for similar tuition waivers at a growing list of schools.
Those who have been in the care of a children’s aid society or Indigenous child welfare agency in Northwestern Ontario or Simcoe County will be eligible to apply.
Students must also be eligible to receive funding and demonstrate financial need through OSAP and maintain at least a 60 per cent course load (or 40 per cent for students with an identified permanent disability).
More details about the program are available online, and applications will be available in the New Year.
Lakehead joins around 20 other Canadian post-secondary schools that have made similar commitments.
Unique to Lakehead’s waiver, the school will also cover the cost of access programs for eligible Indigenous students, said registrar Andrea Tarsitano.
Dunlop, whose Simcoe North riding includes the Orillia campus, said the initiative responds to disturbing inequities in access to post-secondary education.
“We know youth in extended care, particularly Indigenous youth, are significantly underrepresented in post-secondary education, with fewer than half completing secondary education,” she said.
She praised Lakehead as a university that priotizes access for groups that have traditionally been underrepresented in post-secondary education, noting the school has one of the highest Indigenous enrolment rates in Canada.
Access must also be accompanied by supports on campus, she said, like housing, mental health services, and access programs.
Renee Ferguson of the Child Welfare Political Action Committee, which advocates for tuition waivers and other issues on behalf of children in care, agreed, and said it’s crucial those programs are thoughtfully developed with input from those with lived experience.
Foster youth are more likely to struggle with learning challenges, to have experienced abuse or neglect, and to have fewer family supports, she said.
Jane Kovarikova, board chair of children’s aid society Simcoe Muskoka Family connexions, helped bring the proposal for the waiver to McPherson and other leaders at Lakehead.
She’s only the second former youth in care to head one of Ontario’s child welfare agencies, she noted. She hopes by expanding access to education, those who come after her will have more equal access to those kinds of opportunities.
Like many children in care, she said she moved to new households multiple times. Each move is estimated to set children back by four to six months educationally, she said.
Kovarikova’s grandfather helped pay for her tuition, what she called a lucky break. Lakehead’s waiver program will give youth who weren’t as lucky a similar opportunity for education and upward mobility.
