Students in Ontario are starting to see the effect of the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) changes announced earlier this year.
On June 19, students received the estimates of their funding and some took to social media to express their frustration as some received almost half of what they were set to receive before the changes.
In January 2019, the provincial government announced a 10-per-cent decrease to tuition fees and an increase in the amount of funds that go to students who come from families that make less than $50,000 per year.
According to the Ontario government’s website, the changes will ensure that 82 per cent of grants will go to students who come from families which do not exceed the income threshold, as opposed to 76 per cent of grants, under the previous provincial government.
I am receiving HALF the amount of #OSAP funding that I received last year. I'm nearly in tears, as I worry about being able to afford school this year. So thank you @fordnation for making it nearly impossible to go to school and shaping our future for the worse. pic.twitter.com/5N8hJPu1k0
— Marianne (@Mariann84249936) June 18, 2019
Ward Verschaeve, a fourth-year commerce student at Carleton University, said he was distraught and angry when he received his OSAP estimates for the upcoming year.
Verschaeve said he has used OSAP payments to fund the past three years of his post-secondary education, in addition to several of his living expenses.
He said his payments have been reduced by 25 per cent approximately—from $16,000 in total last year, to an estimated total of $12,000 for the upcoming year.
“It has a significant impact on my quality of life, because they say money isn’t everything, but it very much is,” Verschaeve said.
“We shouldn’t be punished for trying to seek a higher education.”
The reason behind the cuts was that under the previous Ontario government, OSAP was “fiscally unsustainable,” according to the website.
The Ontario government cited a December 2018 report by Ontario Auditor General Bonnie Lysyk to support the changes to the program.
According to the report, a recent provincial budget projected that OSAP could cost the province “$2 billion annually by the 2020-2021 fiscal year, a net increase of 50 per cent from the 2016-2017 fiscal year.”
Without any changes, the OSAP budget would have ballooned to $2.7 billion by 2023-24. That is more than double the expenses from 2017 with almost nothing to show for it.
— Merrilee Fullerton, MPP (@DrFullertonMPP) June 19, 2019
Merrilee Fullerton, former minister of Training, Colleges and Universities, addressed Liberal MPP Michael Coteau, on Twitter about the OSAP changes.
The report also stated that post-secondary enrolment only increased 1 to 2 per cent, even though the amount of university and college students in Ontario receiving financial aid increased by 24 and 27 per cent since August 2017.
Michael Coteau, Liberal MPP for Don Valley East, said he feels for Ontario students who received lowered OSAP payment estimates for the upcoming school year.
“I was thinking to myself, those students that are across Ontario opening up those envelopes must have been just disappointed—their dreams, in some cases, shattered,” Coteau said. “I just thought, what a sad day in Ontario for that to happen.”
Coteau said he received OSAP payments to fund his education at Carleton University.
“OSAP has been sustainable since I was a student,” he said. “What’s not sustainable in Ontario is Doug Ford’s policies on taking more from young people and putting it into the hands of big corporations.”
Verschaeve said this decrease in OSAP payments might also affect the funding of student groups which are affected by the Student Choice Initiative.
“I feel like students are going to back out of every single optional program now that the cuts are being announced,” he said.
“It’s going to be a tough decision to make, because [although] I want those programs to be there, I have to look out for myself as well.”
—With files from Tim Austen
File photo
