Eligible undergraduate students in universities across Ontario will have an extra $800 in their pockets when the Liberal tuition grant kicks in this January, according to Glen Murray, Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities.
As promised in their provincial election campaign, the Ontario government has announced a $450 million tuition fee grant program that will see certain undergraduate students pay $1,600 less per year, according to a press release.
“[The grant] gets money into their pockets quickly, and starts to bring the cost down for students, especially those who are early in the system,” Murray said in a conference call.
The grant is available to all full-time university and college undergraduate students in Ontario who graduated from high school in the last four years and whose parents have a combined income of less than $160,000 a year, Murray said.
Out-of-province students are not eligible.
In the new year, undergraduate university students will start receiving cheques of $800, while college students will receive $265, Murray said.
In September 2012, the full amount of $1,600 for university students and $730 for college students will be automatically deducted from their tuition fees, he said.
The grant will affect more than 320,000 students, including the roughly 160,000 students who currently receive money from the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). They will qualify automatically, Murray said.
Students who aren’t currently receiving money from OSAP will have to register online to receive the grant, Murray said.
“We’re trying to keep it down to one page,” he said. “It will not be as difficult as an OSAP application.”
Marianne Williams, an out-of-province fourth-year art history and Canadian studies student at Carleton, said although she’s disappointed she doesn’t qualify for the grant, she thinks it makes sense to some extent.
“If I had stayed in Alberta, where I’m from, I’d be paying comparable tuition to what Ontario students have with the grant,” she said. “I think that kind of makes it fair, and encourages people to stay in their home provinces, which provincial governments would want.”
“That said, it does suck that I have to pay [more] just because I’m not [from Ontario],” she said.
In September, the Ontario Liberals announced they would introduce a grant that would cut tuition fees by 30 per cent. While Murray said this isn’t technically a tuition cut, it has the same effect on the students who qualify.
