When Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s authorities drastically lower scholar help grants earlier this yr, it cited “unsustainable” prices, however new figures present practically all the current progress was amongst profession faculty college students.
Knowledge obtained by The Canadian Press by a freedom-of-information request exhibits that between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 educational years, the province spent $465 million extra on Ontario Pupil Help Program grants, and 95 per cent of that went to non-public profession faculty college students.
That factors to an issue of the federal government’s personal making and the answer didn’t need to penalize college students at universities and publicly funded faculties, opposition critics mentioned.
“Doug Ford used the rising value of OSAP as his excuse to intestine scholar help, slashing the grant portion from 85 per cent all the way down to 25 per cent and leaving college students to tackle extra debt,” Liberal critic for faculties and universities Tyler Watt wrote in a press release.
“These numbers present that excuse doesn’t maintain up.”
When college students apply for Ontario monetary help they’re additionally assessed for federal help, and the brand new knowledge exhibits that whereas total each the Ontario and federal parts of what college students have been receiving are on the rise, one class stands out.
College college students acquired about $370 million in Ontario Pupil Grants in 2023-24, an quantity that truly decreased the next yr to about $354 million. College students at publicly funded faculties acquired $349 million in 2023-24 and $386 million the following yr. Canada Pupil Grants rose at comparatively comparable paces.
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Profession faculty college students, nevertheless, acquired about $554 million in Ontario Pupil Grants in 2023-24, and the next yr they acquired about $994 million.
That’s greater than the quantity of Ontario College students Grants for public faculty and college college students mixed.
Throughout the identical time interval, the quantity of Canada Pupil Grants those self same college students acquired was far decrease, and was a smaller relative enhance, from $201 million in 2023-24 to $338 million the following yr.
NDP Chief Marit Stiles mentioned with many of the enhance coming in profession faculty utilization, it seems like the federal government was simply on the lookout for an excuse to chop all OSAP spending.
“I believe they had been unwilling to solely make cuts that impacted their mates on the non-public profession faculties,” she mentioned.
“It simply exhibits me that they by no means really explored choices that may have saved this system, and it’s college students which might be going to pay the worth.”
When Ontario Premier Doug Ford’s authorities drastically lower scholar help grants earlier this yr, it cited “unsustainable” prices, however new figures present practically all the current progress was amongst profession faculty college students.
Knowledge obtained by The Canadian Press by a freedom-of-information request exhibits that between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 educational years, the province spent $465 million extra on Ontario Pupil Help Program grants, and 95 per cent of that went to non-public profession faculty college students.
That factors to an issue of the federal government’s personal making and the answer didn’t need to penalize college students at universities and publicly funded faculties, opposition critics mentioned.
“Doug Ford used the rising value of OSAP as his excuse to intestine scholar help, slashing the grant portion from 85 per cent all the way down to 25 per cent and leaving college students to tackle extra debt,” Liberal critic for faculties and universities Tyler Watt wrote in a press release.
“These numbers present that excuse doesn’t maintain up.”
When college students apply for Ontario monetary help they’re additionally assessed for federal help, and the brand new knowledge exhibits that whereas total each the Ontario and federal parts of what college students have been receiving are on the rise, one class stands out.
College college students acquired about $370 million in Ontario Pupil Grants in 2023-24, an quantity that truly decreased the next yr to about $354 million. College students at publicly funded faculties acquired $349 million in 2023-24 and $386 million the following yr. Canada Pupil Grants rose at comparatively comparable paces.
Profession faculty college students, nevertheless, acquired about $554 million in Ontario Pupil Grants in 2023-24, and the next yr they acquired about $994 million.
That’s greater than the quantity of Ontario College students Grants for public faculty and college college students mixed.
Throughout the identical time interval, the quantity of Canada Pupil Grants those self same college students acquired was far decrease, and was a smaller relative enhance, from $201 million in 2023-24 to $338 million the following yr.
NDP Chief Marit Stiles mentioned with many of the enhance coming in profession faculty utilization, it seems like the federal government was simply on the lookout for an excuse to chop all OSAP spending.
“I believe they had been unwilling to solely make cuts that impacted their mates on the non-public profession faculties,” she mentioned.
“It simply exhibits me that they by no means really explored choices that may have saved this system, and it’s college students which might be going to pay the worth.”
© 2026 The Canadian Press
