Ontario Student Assistance Program

Jamie Strashen has more.

At York University, students rallied against changes to the province's student loan program, better known as OSAP.

Simone Lennon is the York Federation of Students president.

I think it speaks to the importance, necessity of education right now, even if we're talking about getting a good job.

Earlier this year, the province changed the OSAP funding structure, reducing the maximum grant portion from 85% to 25%, making the minimum loan portion 75%.

Also, after years of freezes, colleges and universities can raise tuition by 2% for each of the next three years.

Some students at Guelph University walked out of classes today.

making sure that we move faster, quicker, immediate on everything across the board.

But they're not going to do that for those students that are still waiting for their OSAP funding.

They're not going to do that.

They're not going to move quick on that.

How can you justify such a broad action when surely a government as large and sophisticated as Ontario's has more refined tools at its disposal to take more targeted actions?

Yeah.

Well, when we give out grants right across the board, there has to be some faith in the system because it's just not with OSAP on the private career colleges and universities.

But what we have right now, we have KPMG in there.

It's a matter of making sure that this then continues at the local level.

I hope you don't mind if I bring up something we hadn't anticipated talking about, but the freeze to OSAP funding here in the province of Ontario has been top of mind for a lot of people.

And one of the things that I was wondering about was the pipeline to employment by those students and the – The fact that there is, you know, five years, two, three years from now, there's, you know, dental assistants or, you know, there's dentists who want to hire dental assistants that won't be able to.

And it's that unpredictability, that type of unpredictability that we're trying to avoid.

Correct?

Correct, Ben.

But, you know, the whole issue of OSAP is very different from those who then end up graduating from, you know, whether it's private career colleges, colleges or universities and getting into the workplace.

So obviously people have different circumstances as to why they get OSEP.

Last thing I got here on the list.

OSAP fraud.

Did you guys see anything about that? They're basically a bunch of OSAP applications came from two IP addresses.

That's why I wish the homie would have pulled up.

We'll talk about

that another

day.

The foreign government says more than half of last year's OSAP applications from two career colleges came from a single IP address.

The annual deficit is at $62.3 billion for 2026-27.

About 100 students at the University of Windsor took part in a walkout on Thursday to protest changes to OSAP funding.

R.J. Dagular with the Students' Alliance says the changes are limiting access to education.

There are students who would have otherwise been attending here that are no longer able to do so because of the conversion of grants to loans.

The bench talk has become one of the mission's signature events, promoting conversations about some of the community's most vulnerable.

Students at the University of Windsor have walked out of class over changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program.

Students from the University of Windsor Student Alliance are walking out along with students at other universities in Ontario.

The changes only give students a quarter of their funding as a grant and the rest will have to be paid back.

That's a really good point.

And I'm wondering if it'll make people forget about – That OSAP scandal, brewing scandal, where some totally blameless students are getting ensnared in addition to the bad actors, that is the key issue right now at Queen's Park.

So, the numbers, 416-360-0740, and toll-free, and our text line, 866-740-0740.

And now, the Recovering Politicians panel.

This is their opportunity.

I know that they're going to have a leader of the Liberal Party coming in soon, but it's up to Merritt Stiles right now to come at this in a very logical way, because there are breadcrumbs all over the place that if you piece them together, if you had George Smitherman in charge, you could really actually find a solid case that the government isn't doing what it's supposed to be doing.

So what about this OSAP scandal? What do you think the implications are? Is it going to stick, Lisa? Yeah,

I do.