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Students asked to prove Yukon connection to qualify for grant

First made-in-Yukon college degree focuses on Indigenous governance

Dozens of people studying on the Yukon government's dime may be cut off from funding next year.

Thirty-eight students received an email last week telling them they may not meet the new eligibility requirements of the Yukon Grant, which provides funding for Yukon students to pursue post-secondary studies.

Last August, the territorial government amended the Student Financial Assistance Act.

Previously, a student who had never been to Yukon could be eligible for the grant if their parents lived in the territory for the previous two years.

Now, students must have attended two years of high school in the territory and have been a Yukon resident for two years prior to starting post-secondary studies.

Students who were notified by email may not meet the new requirements, but were grandfathered in for the 2016-17 school year, says Sheila Tarr, acting director of of training programs for Yukon education.

A close tie or connection?

"Students are encouraged to apply, and may be asked to provide further information," she says about the next school semester. If it's not clear a student is eligible, they may be asked to fill out a "residency clarification form."

"Did they file taxes as a Yukon resident for the last two years? Did they maintain their health care, Yukon health care? Did they maintain their Yukon driver's licence, if applicable?" she says.

In the second reading of this bill in the Yukon legislature last May, former education minister Doug Graham said the residency changes are meant to weed out students who don't maintain a "close tie or connection" to the Yukon.

Tarr says students were notified of changes to the Yukon Grant last May.

Other changes increase the grant's accessibility. The 65 per cent average grade requirement was dropped, as was the rule about students only being eligible for federal or territorial funding, not both.

Tarr says close to 700 students have received the Yukon Grant so far this year, including 169 self-identifying First Nation students. Last year, 117 students who received funding self-identified as First Nations on their application.