MPP Nolan Quinn sits in the Ontario Legislature at Queen’s Park in Toronto, Monday, April 14, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Cole Burston
Ontario’s minister for colleges and universities has prohibited three career colleges from providing publicly funded student financial aid until at least 2030. This follows an earlier restriction that applied only for this year.
An order issued in May by Nolan Quinn resulted in six schools, including four Academy of Learning campuses, being barred from accessing the Ontario Student Assistance Program for the upcoming 2026-27 academic year. Most of these institutions are currently challenging this decision in court.
Quinn’s ruling came after government inspections uncovered evidence indicating that third parties were completing coursework on behalf of students-sometimes even entire courses in a single day-and some students were unable to identify their school or program, according to claims made in court documents.
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Three Academy of Learning campuses, which share a parent company, amended their legal complaint earlier this month to state that Quinn has now restricted them from OSAP for an additional three years following a “final” decision made by his ministry.
Quinn’s office did not provide any comments; however, regulations governing the sector stipulate that if an institution is found non-compliant with those regulations, it will be disqualified from OSAP for three years.
The schools argue through their court application that Quinn’s decision was unreasonable and lacked proper procedure.
The ministry “imposed and relied upon new approval criteria and evidentiary standards without adequate prior notice, and relied upon adverse information and analyses that was not adequately disclosed,” stated the schools.
Concerns regarding the use of OSAP at certain career colleges extend beyond the initial six locations targeted by Quinn’s order. Career Colleges Ontario raised issues as early as 2023 and highlighted 14 campuses whose application patterns “include indicators consistent with possible suspicious activity,” they wrote to the government as part of the court filing.
Last week, Quinn revealed that auditors KPMG were brought in August due to “serious concerns” found during their preliminary assessments. The province has since referred these matters to the Ontario Provincial Police.
Issues include connections with immigration services firms alongside private career colleges, insufficient validation of students’ identities and course enrolments, as well as unusually high concentrations of OSAP applications coming from similar geographic areas, according to Quinn.
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He did not specify whether these issues pertain specifically to the three Academy of Learning campuses now banned from OSAP until 2029-30; however records indicate inspectors expressed concerns over student validation and course enrolment verification at those schools.
None of these findings or allegations have been substantiated in court. The Academy of Learning did not respond when asked for comments regarding the extended three-year OSAP ban but previously mentioned some students may have disregarded government verification attempts because they thought they were scam calls while others might have faced language barriers.
Additionally, these schools submitted corrective action plans addressing issues identified during inspections which included implementing two-factor authentication and investigating unusual login activities.
The Academy acknowledged that instances of unusually quick course completion need review but argued some students download materials for offline study. They also said they’ve enhanced monitoring before issuing exam codes.
Data obtained by The Canadian Press via a freedom-of-information request reveals that Academy of Learning’s Bay Street location saw its OSAP student count rise dramatically from 996 in 2021-22 to 7,435 by 2024-25. During this period alone students received more than $108 million in provincial OSAP grants.
The Brampton East campus increased its number from around 74 OSAP users in 2020-21 up to approximately 4,260 by 2024-25 resulting in over $64 million awarded in provincial grants during that latter year.
Together with North York location-which is part of Brampton East-they accounted for one-fifth of nearly $1 billion distributed through provincial OSAP grants across all career colleges during that time frame.
According to Academy officials high growth rates stemmed from offering programs aligned with workforce needs.
In light of rising costs associated with OSAP funding , earlier this year Quinn announced changes meaning career college students would no longer qualify for grants while publicly funded college attendees would see much lower grant amounts available alongside higher loan proportions instead.
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