Post-secondary students in Ontario may have to deal with the highest tuition fees in the country, but Alberta’s 125,000 students have their own heap of problems that are leaving them in the red years after graduation – if they graduate, that is.

The province has the third highest average tuition in Canada, at $5,520 for undergraduate students in 2009-2010, the lowest participation rate in its post-secondary school system, and the highest college and university dropout rate.

According to student representatives and advanced education critics, the Alberta government is to blame for these appalling statistics.

Liberal Advanced Education critic Harry Chase has spoken out against the recent cut to student grants, scholarships, and bursaries in the Alberta budget announced early last month as an example of the Progressive Conservative government “having their cake and eating it too.”

Advanced Education spokeswoman Kim Capstick maintained that the reduction of grants by

$54 million to a total of $85 million is being offset by an expanded student loan program.

“We want to make sure cost isn’t a barrier for students. And we must do that in the form of loans and not grants in times of recession,” she said.

Chase said he disagreed with the pretext of the economic recession.

“[The Stelmach government] will get more bang for its buck through a loan program than freely giving out grants. We’ve got $17 billion in savings stored away in our Sustainability Fund,” he said, promptly dismissing the government department’s position that there are no additional resources in the budget.

The growing proportion of students graduating with higher levels of debt is a national problem, confirmed by a Statistics Canada report released late January that student debt has never been higher.

In Alberta, the grants cut will not only exacerbate students’ debt sentences, but it will serve as a barrier for completing degrees, stressed Robert Jones, chair of the Alberta Students’ Executive Council.

“The government is allowing institutions to the pass the buck onto students fiscally. On top of that, they are taking away grants, the sole way a lot of students financed their education,” he said, referring to Alberta’s high tuition fees and the fact that it is the only province that does not regulate ancillary fees (those supporting student services such as library holdings).

“[The Stelmach government] has seriously damaged access to post-secondary education,” the fifth-year Mount Royal University student continued.

The Alberta government’s neglect of education spells serious consequences of its economy, critics say.

“We’re missing half the equation when we say we’ll cut funding for students. What about the returns the students will bring to the economy?” Jones questioned.

Large amounts of accrued student debt will start to cripple the Albertan economy several years down the road, he added.

“The government is viewing education as a liability as opposed to an investment,” Chase noted.

For every dollar invested in post-secondary education, Chase said the province yields about $3.80 in the short-term through higher taxes.

He said the prairie province is driving students away to other parts of Canada – and doing its people a disservice – because of its lack of economic diversification.

“This government’s got a gambling problem. We need to get away from this overreliance on non-renewable resources like conventional oil,” he warned.

Instead of coming up with a diversified, knowledge-based economy, the Progressive Conservative government is just riding the market, Chase criticized.

Jones agreed that the province’s revenues being too closely tied to the volatile oil patch is dangerous, as opportunities come and go like the rain storms.

“We need to move forward to a knowledge-based economy to guarantee success,” he echoed. “And this requires us to make education a priority.”