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Post secondary students at QP Nov 5 2026

Post-secondary students fail to secure meeting with provincial colleges and universities minister

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There is growing anger amongst students with the state of post-secondary education in Ontario.

They cite the end of a tuition freeze, cuts to student assistance and the underfunding of colleges and universities as making post-secondary education unaffordable and inaccessible for many.

The Ontario chapter of the Canadian Federation of Students launched an awareness campaign a year ago.

National rep. Omar Mousa says students are coming together, united, to oppose what they see as attacks on post-secondary education.

“We will not stand by while our education becomes increasingly unaffordable, inaccessible, and privatized,” says Mousa.

“Students refuse to stand by while this government attempts to price students out of education. This is a province-wide movement that will continue to grow stronger until our demands are met.”

Students are calling for the tuition freeze for domestic students to be reinstated and held until 2030.

They also want a one-year grace period on repayments of student assistance funding to allow students time to find work and be in a secure position to make those payments.

They also want a boost to the funding provided to public colleges and universities that matches the national average.

Art student Leah St. Germain says they attempted this week to discuss their concerns with Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn.

“Minister Nolan Quinn, you had an opportunity to meet with us and engage students from across the province, and you failed to do so,” says St. Germain.

“This is not the first time that the minister and the ministry have avoided engaging with the students, and it is disappointing that this government continues to fail to address students and their demands.”

Some students staged a walkout and protests on Wednesday at some colleges and universities to apply further pressure on the government.

They student warn of further action until the government listens to them and takes action on their concerns.

John Fraser Tyler Watt on OSAP Oct 14 2026

Ontario Liberals seek OSAP funding restored to private career colleges not under investigation

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Ontario Liberals are calling for the Ford government to restore student assistance to private career colleges that are not at the centre of a scandal involving the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP).

All grants were frozen after the Liberals raised concern about the amount of money directed to a small handful of learning institutions.

The Liberals say 95% of all OSAP funding issued in 2025 was issued to the private career colleges.

An audit is being done, but Interim leader John Fraser feels the OPP should be involved.

“I understand the need for an audit, but I think it has been rather obvious,” says Fraser.

“There’s a lot of smoke here. There’s a lot of money, and there’s very clear evidence of unusual activity they’ve known about for three years. I’m just surprised that they haven’t started an investigation in the last two years. That’s the shocking thing.”

The Liberals also point to one career college with campuses across the province, they say, that has close political connections to the PC party and received one-fifth of all OSAP money.

Ottawa-area MPP Tyler Watt says government inspectors even visited its Ottawa campus in 2025 and identified in court documents that it could not demonstrate that OSAP-funded students were participating in programs.

He says by freezing OSAP to all private career colleges, the government is unfairly punishing students who attend colleges following the rules.

“These students are sacrificing so much to be here,” says Watt.

“Some drive two hours a day to get to class, while others are precariously housed. The government broke OSAP, blamed students for it, and now those same students are the ones suffering.”

Fraser puts the blame solely on the Minister of Colleges and Universities.

“Nolan Quinn must resign or be fired,” says Fraser.

“Only in Ontario could you fail on this scale hundreds of millions of dollars. One school in one year, three locations, getting one-fifth of all of the OSAP funding. Only in Ontario could you fail that big, still keep your job, and then thousands and thousands of other people who just want a better future lose that.”

Screenshot 2026-10-05 090118

Review of student financial aid program requested by Liberal MPP

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The Auditor General is being asked to examine the funding the Ontario Student Assistance Program provides to students attending private career colleges.

Ottawa-area MPP Tyler Watt says 95% of all funding issued last year went to students attending career colleges.

He says one college saw its OSAP applications increase by as much as 600% over the past two years.

Watt suggests it is why the government changed OSAP earlier this year.

“This has all the makings of Doug Ford’s next billion-dollar scandal, one of many,” says Watt.

“We’ve written to the Auditor General today and requested a value for money audit of OSAP spending at private career colleges to find out what the government knew, when, and how much taxpayer money was involved.”

Watt says Career Colleges Ontario, the organization that lobbies on behalf of the colleges, warned the government a few years ago about the potential misuse of OSAP at some facilities.

He says it took the government three years before sending inspectors to investigate.

“And instead of cracking down on the dozen or so private career colleges at the center of OSAP spending increases, the government took a hatchet to a problem that required a scalpel, and it ruined OSAP for everyone,” says Watt.

Ontario’s Colleges and Universities Minister had stated that without the changes, including an increase in the loan portion of funding, the program was not sustainable.

Young student concentrating on an exam in a classroom setting, thinking deeply.

OSAP funding delays leave students waiting as NDP calls for action

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An Ontario NDP shadow minister is raising concerns over reports that some post-secondary students are still waiting to receive Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) funding, two weeks after the start of classes.

Peggy Sattler, the NDP’s Shadow Minister for Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security, says her office has heard from students across the province who have not yet received funding they were expecting through OSAP.

“Students are struggling to pay for textbooks, lab kits, technology and basic necessities like groceries and gas while they wait for funding that should already be in their accounts. Some students have even been unable to purchase materials required for their classes, putting their academic success at risk through no fault of their own,” Sattler wrote in an open letter to Nolan Quinn, Ontario’s Minister of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security.

The London West MPP also criticized previous changes to the provincial student aid program, saying students are already taking on greater debt to pursue post-secondary education and should not have to face additional uncertainty when accessing approved funding.

Sattler is calling on the Ford government to immediately release outstanding OSAP payments and address what she describes as administrative issues behind the delays.

“Students should not have to suffer because this government can’t get its own systems in order. The Ford government must immediately release the OSAP funding students are waiting for and fix these administrative failures, so this never happens again,” she wrote.

The provincial government has not yet publicly responded to Sattler’s statement.

2026-09-15_OSAP_DelaysDownload
OSAP opposition Mar 31

NDP motion to reverse OSAP changes fails at Queen’s Park

The Ford government has rejected a motion to reverse changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program.

The NDP forced the vote, but the governing PCs used their majority to reject the motion.

Northwestern Ontario members Greg Rickford and Kevin Holland were among PC MPPs standing in opposition.

“We told Doug Ford to do the right thing: scrap the OSAP cuts and the interest on student loans,” says Stiles.

“The Premier decided to send a crystal-clear message to Ontario’s youth: he does not care about their future.”

The NDP’s Colleges and Universities critic Peggy Sattler calls the outcome a disgrace.

“Doug Ford had a chance to give our youth a desperately-needed lifeline,” says Sattler.

“He used that chance to bury them under a lifetime of student debt. This is a heartless move that will disproportionately affect low-to-moderate-income students and their families.”

The opposition and students have been vocal about the changes that will see the grant portion of funding provided to post-secondary students reduced from 85% to 25%.

Students have held protests across the province, including two mass gatherings on the steps of Queen’s Park.

Cyrielle Ngeleka, chair of the Ontario chapter of the Canadian Federation of Students, says the move only makes post-secondary education more inaccessible for many young people.

“The increase of loans and the reduction of grants will undoubtedly impact thousands of current and future students across the entire province, locking them out of their education and narrowing who gets to access it in the first place,” says Ngeleka.

Students say that with high youth unemployment and the cost of living, they are already struggling to make ends meet.

President of the Ontario Student Trustees Association, Carter Peios, says the government is not looking out for the best interests of students.

“We cannot fully invest in a province socially or economically when it does not fully invest in us,” says Peios.

“OSAP is the bridge between today’s dreams and tomorrow’s accomplishments that students have, and students will need to rely on now more than ever.”

Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn stands by the government’s argument that under the previous formula, the program was not sustainable in the long term.

“In 2017, the Auditor General made it very clear. A desperate Liberal government trying to hang on to power increased our grants to an unsustainable level of 85%, which was not in line with any other jurisdiction across Canada,” says Quinn.

“We have aligned our grants to loan ratio right in line with every other jurisdiction across Canada, including the federal Liberal government.”

The opposition and students are not planning to give up.

The Liberals have indicated plans to bring forward a similar motion in the future.

Stiles says they will also continue to do everything they can to get OSAP back to what it was.

Nolan Quinn

Fight to reverse Ontario Student Assistance Program changes brought to Queen’s Park

The Ford government is being forced to defend its decision to change the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) as MPPs return to Queen’s Park.

Opposition MPPs are calling for a reversal of the changes that reduced the grant portion of funding to post-secondary students from 85% to 25%.

NDP leader Marit Stiles told the legislature that the impact is already being felt.

“A lot of students are deciding that they’re going to have to give up on university or college, and we’re talking PSWs and ECEs and teachers and healthcare workers,” says Stiles.

“They’re turning down their offers because they cannot afford it.”

Universities and Colleges Minister Nolan Quinn says the move was necessary to keep the program in place.

“The changes we’re making to OSAP are to ensure it is sustainable so that this program can be around for the next generation of students behind these students,” says Quinn.

“They’ll continue to get the support they need when accessing higher education. If our government had not acted like myself and the Premier have clearly articulated, we would have decimated OSAP, putting student access at risk and a massive burden on the taxpayer.”

He notes that the grant portion is still greater than it was 10 years ago.

The government was also presented with dozens of petitions signed by students calling for OSAP’s funding formula to be restored to what it was.

Marit Stiles OSAP Feb 23 2026

NDP, students continue to rally against OSAP changes

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The opposition is not ready to give up its fight to reverse the government’s changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP).

The government announced earlier this month that the financial assistance program for post-secondary students would see the grant portion lowered from 85% to 25%.

Premier Ford states the current format was unsustainable.

The NDP has initiated a petition and letter-writing campaign in an effort to convince the government to reconsider.

Leader Marit Stiles says, despite the Premier indicating no plans to revert back, they will keep the heat on.

“And if he cannot see beyond the silver spoon in his own mouth, he’s going to have to start,” says Stiles.

“He made a lot of promises to the people of this province just a year ago in that election. He’s a premier who has campaigned on keeping money in people’s pockets. And he is going to literally leave . . . students across this province struggling with debt for decades.”

Students are also speaking out.

York University student Christian Turner says the changes to OSAP do nothing to invest in the future of young Ontarians.

“This decision from the Premier is incredibly ridiculous, and it serves nobody except those at the top,” says Turner.

“For students, this is a travesty, saddling them with even more debt at the provincial level, compounded with the fact that they’re having a lot of debt at the federal level.”

Adaeze Mbalaja, a York University student and Campaigns and Communications Coordinator for the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario, says the province should be supporting the program.

“Students’ dreams of attending post-secondary education have been eliminated with this ministry announcement,” says Mbalaja.

“If this government truly cared about students and the sustainability of the OSAP program, it would have funded the program, not attacked it.”

Students are also expressing concern about the end of the tuition freeze.

Colleges and universities are permitted to increase rates 2%.

Stiles says the decision to revise the program adds eligibility changes to OSAP in 2019.

“Students who need financial assistance are being shut out by this government, or they’re being saddled with this huge burden of debt with interest,” says Stiles.

She sees students in a position to do so, to seek out bank loans or lines of credit to afford post-secondary education in the future.