The Ontario provincial government announced on Sept. 11 that more than one-third of all college and university students will be receiving free tuition in the 2017-18 academic year, as a part of changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP).
The new Ontario Student Grant (OSG) program was announced last year in the 2016 provincial budget making it the single-largest modernization ever of OSAP, according to a press release from the Ontario government.
“Beginning this fall, more students than ever will be able to focus on achieving their goals rather than worrying about their finances,” Bob Chiarelli, MPP for Ottawa West-Nepean, said in the release.
How does it work?
According to Carleton University’s website, free tuition means OSAP grants—non-repay able aid—would equal or exceed the tuition for a college diploma or undergraduate degree.
Ingrid Anderson, provincial government spokesperson, said in an email that the changes to OSAP are made possible by reallocating existing government funding that is already supporting post-secondary students.
The government is consolidating a number of OSAP grants, such as the 30 per cent off Ontario tuition grant, the Ontario Access Grant, the Ontario Child Care Bursary, the Ontario Student Opportunity Grant, and the Ontario Distance Grants, as well as the Ontario tuition and education tax credits, she added.
“Financial support previously provided at various times (e.g., start of studies, end of studies, or years later) will now be provided to students upfront to help with education costs when students need it most,” she said in an email.
Therefore, students who qualify for the new OSG will graduate with no provincial loan debt.
Who qualifies for free tuition?
According to the Ontario government website, eligible students are those whose parents earn less than $50,000 per year.
But, students from middle-income families can still benefit from free tuition.
Students from families with a combined income up to $175,000 will benefit from more generous grants and loans to assist with college and university expenses.
The thresholds for Ontario aid vary by family size because the same amount of income goes further when there are fewer people in the family to support, according to Carleton’s website.
While the threshold will be set at $50,000 for the most common family sizes, it will increase by $5,000 per additional family member for larger families.
New proposed programs
Among the new OSAP changes are things such as pharmacare, increases in minimum wage, upping repayment assistance, and providing free textbooks.
Starting Jan. 1, 2018, youth under the age of 25 covered by the Ontario Health Insurance Plan (OHIP) will receive free pharmacare, and will not have to pay for prescription
medication.
Also among the recent provincial plans is to raise minimum wage to $15 by 2019 to help students be able to afford the costs of attending post-secondary institutions.
In addition, previously, students began repaying their OSAP loans when they started making at least $25,000 annually after graduating. However, under the new changes, repayment of loans don’t start until the student is making at least $35,000.
The Ontario government has also partnered with eCampusOntario, a not-for-prot corporation funded by the Government of Ontario, to develop and provide free and low-cost digital textbooks to students.
What does it mean for students?
Lea Rosales, a third-year journalism student at Carleton, said the new OSAP changes are both good and bad.
“It’s unfair for the people who are in the middle,” she said. “A lot of people are too poor to afford going to school but too rich to make that cut-off point.”
Although Rosales does not use OSAP, she said she hopes to see more changes that help students from middle-class families.
“It’s hard for everybody to pay their tuition off, not just the people that are under the [$50 thousand] mark,” she said.
Camille Ferland, a Queen’s University psychology graduate, said it was good to get funding from OSAP during her time at Queen’s.
But she said the changes are an issue for students whose parents make enough money, and students who worked over the summer and were able to save up money, because it meant they received less grants.
“I decided not to work at all because I knew how the system worked. So I didn’t work at all in university and then I got way more OSAP than my friend who worked all through university,” she explained.
However, Ferland said her friend and herself both ended up owing the same amount at the end of their degree which she said isn’t fair.
What about tuition hikes?
A recent report by Statistics Canada indicated that tuition fees will rise by an average of 3.1 per cent across the country.
Gayle McFadden, a spokesperson for the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario, told Metro News while she applauds the changes, they don’t address the cost of education, or the fact that Ontario students pay the highest tuition fees in the entire country.
According to Carleton’s website, OSAP funding adjusts to changes to the average undergraduate arts and science tuition and average regular college tuition level.
Photo by Meagan Casalino
