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The provincial government is halting OSAP payments to private post-secondary institutions.

The move comes amidst concerns about the growing number of student financial aid applications coming from private colleges.

Liberal MPP Tyler Watt said earlier this week that 95% of all funding last year went to private colleges.

He has asked Ontario’s Auditor General to investigate.

Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn says his ministry is already looking into the concerns.

Quinn says his ministry actively began looking into concerns back in May 2025 that related to certain private career colleges.

He says it led to the government suspending their OSAP eligibility earlier this year.

“Given the volume and nature of the issues identified by the ministry, in August 2026 the government engaged an independent third-party auditor, KPMG, to assess the broader integrity of OSAP applications at private post-secondary institutions,” states Quinn in a statement.

“While that work is ongoing, preliminary findings have identified serious concerns about the integrity of the OSAP system in the private post-secondary sector. These include common ownership, the involvement of immigration services firms, inadequate student validation and verification of course enrolment and outcomes, and unusually high concentrations of OSAP applications submitted from the same geographic locations.”

Quinn says both the Auditor General and the Ontario Provincial Police have been notified.

He is also planning to bring forward stricter criteria for the private colleges to be eligible for OSAP money.

The government is also working on options to provide students impacted with low-interest, third-party loans to remain enrolled.

The freeze on OSAP payments does not impact students attending a publicly funded college or university in Ontario.