PSAC Ontario calls on the provincial government to reverse its changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) and restore meaningful grant funding for students across the province.
Our academic sector members have long sounded the alarm on chronic underfunding and rising financial barriers in Ontario’s post-secondary system. Reducing grants and increasing reliance on loans will only deepen those inequities.
The government’s decision to reduce OSAP grants from 85 per cent to 25 per cent, while permitting tuition increases of up to two per cent annually, will make post-secondary education more debt driven and less accessible. These changes come at a time when Ontario already ranks last in per capita funding for post-secondary education. Instead of strengthening public investment, the government is shifting costs onto students and their families.
The Premier has defended these changes by suggesting student aid is “not a freebie anymore.” Public education is not a freebie, it is a public investment in Ontario’s workforce, public services, and long-term economic stability.
When grants are replaced with loans, the burden falls hardest on low-income students, marginalized communities, and students with disabilities. Barriers that already exist become deeper.
Ontario also faces the highest youth unemployment rate in Canada. Asking students to take on more debt in an unstable job market does not strengthen the economy it narrows who gets to participate in it.
Ontario should be a place where education expands opportunity, where students can learn, grow, and access real pathways into the workforce, without being saddled with debt that becomes a lifelong burden.
PSAC Ontario urges the provincial government to reverse these grant cuts and commit to strengthening public investment in post-secondary education.
In Solidarity,
Craig Reynolds, PSAC Ontario Regional Executive Vice-President