Ontario spent $465M more on student aid. Almost all went to private colleges
New data shows the rise in OSAP costs the Ford government blamed for cutting grants actually stemmed from private career college students, not universities.
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Ontario spent $465 million more on student aid last year, and critics say the numbers reveal a problem of the government's own making.
Between the 2023-24 and 2024-25 academic years, nearly 95 per cent of that increase went to private career college students. University students saw their grants actually decline—from about $370 million to $354 million—while publicly funded college aid rose modestly.
But private career college students received about $554 million in Ontario Student Grants in 2023-24, jumping to $994 million the next year. That's more than university and college students combined.
Premier Doug Ford's government used "unsustainable" costs as justification for slashing OSAP grants from 85 per cent to a maximum of 25 per cent this year, forcing students into more debt. The new figures suggest that rationale doesn't hold up.
"Doug Ford used rising OSAP costs as his excuse to gut student aid," Liberal MPP Tyler Watt said. "These numbers show that excuse doesn't hold up."
The province has since made career college students ineligible for OSAP grants entirely. But the shift leaves university and college students—the ones who saw less cost growth—carrying the burden of repayment through increased loans.
NDP Leader Marit Stiles said the data suggests the government was unwilling to make cuts that affected their allies in the private college sector. "It just shows me that they never actually explored options that would have saved the program," she said.