The Carleton University Students’ Association (CUSA) dropped an open letter to Ontario Premier Doug Ford and MPP Merrilee Fullerton, the minister of training, colleges and universities in conjunction with 74 other student unions across Canada, condemning changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) and the provincially-proposed Student Choice Initiative, as of 7:45 p.m. today.
This comes in the wake of the changes proposed on Jan. 17 by the Ontario Progressive Conservative (PC) which allows students the choice of whether or not to pay certain ancillary fees that have so far been automatically added to their university tuition fee.
The changes proposed on Jan. 17 also included the removal of the free tuition program for low-income students and the six-month interest-free grace period for loan repayment.
According to the open letter, student group executives who wrote it are “writing on behalf of the 1,300,000+ post-secondary students across Canada who have closely watched Ontario over the last week.”
“We are student leaders. We have one job in this role, and that’s to listen to students. We talk to hundreds of students every week and we take action to try to help them,” the letter read. “When their tuition is too high and they need a second job to pay for rent, we listen.”
“While we support the government’s goal in making postsecondary education more affordable in Ontario, the announced changes raise flags for students, families and anyone interested in the province’s ability to stay competitive in years to come.”
CUSA president David Oladejo told the Charlatan he hopes to get more groups to sign on the open letter in the next few days.
“Right now, we’ve signed on with 74 student groups across Canada, but we’re hoping we can keep getting others to sign on as this goes public and gets more traction,” Oladejo said.
The letter states the changes to post-secondary education in the province proposed by the Ontario Progressive Conservative (PC) party “assume that students don’t have the choice in how their student fees are spent.”
BREAKING: Carleton undergrad student union @cusaonline drops open letter with 74 other student groups across Canada to @fordnation and @DrFullertonMPP condemning changes to OSAP and Student Choice Initiave #ottnews #ottcity. @CharlatanLive story to follow. pic.twitter.com/ybD5wm31xj
— Temur Durrani (@temurdur) January 30, 2019
More to come.
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