Changes to OSAP Funding Spark Student Concerns

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Hi, I’m Currents co-editor David Tough. Welcome to your weekly Peterborough Currents email newsletter!

Trent University is still trying to understand what the new funding announced in February by the Ford government means for its financial challenges; stay tuned for that story in the coming weeks.

In the meantime, I’ve been browsing reddit. com/r/Ontario/, where students are sharing their thoughts on the changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) funding – changes that will lead to significantly more debt for graduates across the province.

Let’s jump right into it!

OSAP user experiences

by David Tough

The other day, a reader mentioned that Peterborough Currents has been talked about on local reddit. As you might know, Canadian news outlets can’t share content on major social media platforms due to an ongoing dispute between the federal government and tech companies over compensating news organizations.

This ban has really fueled disinformation since popular sites like Facebook and Twitter now host a lot of misleading commentary and even false “breaking” “news.” For those of us in journalism who recall sharing articles online and receiving instant feedback, it makes it challenging to gauge how readers feel about what we publish.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t find much conversation about Currents when I looked. But it did make me curious about what users were saying regarding recent modifications to Ontario’s income-based student funding program, OSAP.

The headlines have mainly focused on tuition being unfrozen, but a far more pressing issue for students is that most of OSAP will now be in loan form instead of grants. Currently low-income students can receive up to 85% as grants; next year that maximum will drop down to 25%.

While rising tuition does add to education costs overall, a 2% increase is fairly modest. The shift from grants toward loans is drastic and quite abrupt. Students who began their degrees expecting manageable debt now face a choice between accruing significantly larger debt or abandoning their education altogether.

The speed at which such a significant change was rolled out became a common theme in user comments when someone shared a CTV article titled “Students disappointed by cuts to OSAP grants, tuition freeze lift” a few weeks ago.

“Some of us are in the middle of our degrees,” chasinggeese49 wrote, “having had the expectation of paying back $10k for each year in post-secondary. Not $30k. We can’t afford that. We’re going to potentially give up our education halfway through.”

A user named Sauga Asks questioned “Why is it such a gradual approach to allow schools to raise tuition when it’s a sudden flip with loans and grants?”

“Lifting the tuition cap is a good idea,” Le1bn1z wrote, but “Slashing OSAP at the same time and not giving lead time or bridging funding … that is typical Ford carelessness and sloppiness.”

An additional thread responding to an article titled “Ontario lifts tuition freeze, unveils OSAP reforms as it adds billions to university and college funding,” included many partisan criticisms aimed at Doug Ford’s administration but also some thoughtful reflections on timing concerning these recent announcements.

A user named Alfred RWallace remarked, “They wait until colleges cut programs and fire people and THEN decide to do something?”

An additional user known as Girl That Bakes shared their experience: they were “accepted into a program on Friday but then received an email Monday saying it was suspended,” adding they had “less than a week before Feb 1 to find a new program.”

The Ford government may be tempted to brush off these complaints as standard dissatisfaction from those who don’t support them politically. However, these critiques stem from real experiences and raise serious concerns about current policies.

Thanks for reading!

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David Tough
Co-Editor
Peterborough Currents

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