The Liberal 30 per cent Ontario Tuition Grant has only been given out to one third of undergraduate students, despite having been touted to benefit five out of six post-secondary students, according to the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS) and Teresa Armstrong, New Democratic Party (NDP) critic for Training, Colleges, and Universities.
The 200,000 students who have received the grant represent 60 per cent of eligible students, according to Gyula Kovacs, senior media relations co-ordinator of the Ontario Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities.
This would mean that only a little over half of all 600,000 Ontario undergraduates are even eligible for the grant.
Once the program is fully fleshed out, 300,000 students are expected to receive the grant, Kovacs said via email.
A list of exclusions, including being out of high school for more than four years, studying part-time, or taking a professional program like law disqualifies nearly half of all undergrads.
The Liberals aim to “support all middle-class Ontario families” with an “across-the-board” tuition grant, she said.
During last year’s provincial election, the Liberals ran on a platform of reducing tuition by 30 per cent, but not giving out a grant to select students, said CFS-Ontario chairperson Sarah King.
Nine other scholarships and grants, including the Queen Elizabeth II Aiming for the Top scholarship and another for students living in low-income housing, were cancelled in order to fund this program, King said.
Simply lowering tuition across the board would have saved money on the administrative costs related to sorting through grant applications, King added.
Kovacs did not specifically say how much money was allocated for this grant, or what will be done with the leftover funds since the grant has only been given out to 200,000 students.
She said $1.1 billion has been given out in student grants, including the Ontario Tuition grant, in the 2011-2012 year.
“The number of students that have got it when we implemented this within two months, quite frankly, of getting elected, was extraordinary,” said Glen Murray, Ontario minister for Training, Colleges, and Universities in question period at Queen’s Park on June 4.
Kovacs said five-sixths of students who are within four years of graduating high school should be eligible for the grant.
However this condition disqualifies the most students, including all mature students, automatically leaving out about two-thirds of college students, King said.
Carleton student Megan Tessier didn’t qualify for the grant because she took a year off between high school and university to earn money.
Tessier said she’s frustrated because her need for the grant is essentially why she wasn’t eligible.
“I worked about 60 hours a week for a year to save up enough money to go [to university],” said Tessier.
“Even though I paid just as much in the last four years as everyone else, I somehow didn’t warrant the extra financial help.”
Tessier said the grant would have been very helpful to pay off her student debt of approximately $50,000.
