Students about to enter their first year in Ryerson University’s midwifery program are scrambling to find alternate funding options after the Royal Bank of Canada cancelled a specialized loan program this month.

Previously, students could borrow up to $80,000 against their projected earnings as midwives.

Now, the bank won’t consider students’ future earning potential and requires them to have a co-signer.

“Midwifery students have known about the RBC funding and relied on it for many years I think for those that need some support to get them through their schooling,” said Nicole Bennett, the director of Ryerson’s Midwifery Education Program.

“It’s just one more barrier for people who don’t have a lot of financial means to enter into the profession and it saddens me,” she said.

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In a statement RBC spokesperson AJ Goodman said the change was made “to help midwifery students ensure they are taking on manageable loans while pursuing their career.”

Goodman also explained that there is no set cap on the loans available under the bank’s standard student line of credit program.

“If a student can support themselves at a higher threshold, then we will evaluate their application accordingly,” he said.

Incoming student Monique Dupuy said she’s concerned some students now won’t be able to cover the costs of the program.

“I think it’s suspect that it happens during this time of year when people are sort of scrambling to secure funding for the fall,” she added.

RBC told both Dupuy and Linnea Rudachyk, another student who is relocating from Whitehorse, Yukon for the program, that they could still apply for the bank’s regular student line of credit, which is available to all undergraduate students, to help cover the cost of school.

For some midwifery students, though, that might not be enough.

Tuition alone can cost between $6,000 and $8,000 a year. Add in living costs, medical supplies, the cost of a possible relocation for clinical placements in the latter half of the four-year program and Rudachyk estimated it could cost her $100,000 to complete the program.

Students are also not allowed to work while they’re completing unpaid clinical placements and they must have 24-hour access to a reliable car, adding to the costs.

“I may be able to start the program, but I may not be able to complete it, it’s a huge barrier,” said Rudachyk, who was told she could borrow up to $30,000 under a standard student line of credit.

It seems “very unfair” that specialized professional loans are available to students in chiropractic, physiotherapy, law and medical programs, but not midwifery, she said.

RBC offers loans of up to $275,000 for medical students and up to $125,000 for law students without co-signors.

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Midwifery students are very likely to secure employment after graduation and have the potential to be earning $80,000 with a full care load, Bennett said.

“My understanding was that this was a program for professional degrees and midwifery is absolutely a professional degree,” she said.

While a number of banks offer larger loans for professional programs, Dupuy, Rudachyk, and Bennett said as far as they’re aware RBC was one of the only to offer something similar for midwifery students.

CIBC, for instance, offers a Professional Edge line of credit for students in some programs, including medical, law, chiropractic, and nursing schools, but a spokesperson for the bank said midwifery students are eligible to apply for their Education Line of Credit.

The limits available under the Education Line of Credit vary depending on the institution students will attend and offers different repayment options from the professional version.

A spokesperson for TD said their bank offers “Student Lines of Credit for Bachelor of Health Sciences programs, which sometimes can include midwifery programs.” Midwifery is not listed on their website as one of the programs eligible for their professional student lines of credit.

Elizabeth Brandeis, the president of the Association of Ontario Midwives, said losing access to RBC’s health sciences line of credit program feels like yet “another barrier,” for midwives, a profession that’s seeing increasing demand in Ontario.

When the province regulated midwifery in 1994 there were just 60 midwives in the province, who attended fewer than 2 per cent of births.

Today there are close to 900, who in 2015 provided care to more than 22,000 women and attended more than 15 per cent of the births in the province. Each year the Ministry of Health and Long-Term Care also provides funding for an additional 90 midwives in Ontario.

But midwives still can’t accommodate between one-third and one-quarter of requests for their services.

Despite the new challenges presented by the loan cancellation, both Rudachyk and Dupuy plan to pursue their studies. The program is highly competitive, admitting only 30 students a year from between 250 and 280 eligible applicants.

Dupuy said her dad has offered to co-sign a regular student loan if the professional loan program isn’t reinstated, but she doesn’t plan on letting this fight go.

Rudachyk shares her passion. She’s already filed a formal complaint with RBC, written to Ryerson’s program director, her member of Parliament, Larry Bagnell, and has spoken with the Community Midwifery Association of Yukon.