Ontario students brace for ‘vast amount’ of debt amid OSAP changes, tuition increases

As Aidan Jeffers begins his graduate studies at the University of Toronto, he says he will have to work more hours and possibly rely on food banks due to drastic changes to student financial aid in Ontario – and the resulting debt he expects to rack up.

Jeffers said he’s been working two jobs over the summer as large student loans weigh on his mind. He also plans to work 25 or 30 hours a week during the school year.

“I might have to go to the food bank a couple of times,” said Jeffers, an incoming master’s student in library and information science. “I’ll be working during my master’s instead of completely locking in.”

Earlier this year, Premier Doug Ford’s government announced it would sharply cut student assistance grants, citing “unsustainable” costs. As of Aug. 1, the proportion of non-repayable grants a student can receive through the Ontario Student Assistance Program has been reduced from 85 per cent to a maximum of 25 per cent, with the rest given in loans.

The province also lifted a seven-year tuition fee freeze, allowing colleges and universities to raise tuition by up to two per cent per year for the next three years.

Post-secondary students across the province are now bracing for the impact of those changes as a new school year approaches. Many have said that significantly scaled-back OSAP grants will saddle them with high debt loads amid economic uncertainty.

Jeffers said he relied on OSAP throughout his undergraduate studies and will continue to do so in graduate school.

“The biggest change is the amount of actual loans I’ll be getting, as opposed to the grants,” Jeffers said. “My tuition costs have also gone up.”

With 85 per cent of his OSAP funding now being loans, Jeffers said he’s “incurring a vast amount more debt” than he did in his undergraduate years. He said he’ll be receiving around $19,500 this year, of which $12,000 will go toward tuition.

The OSAP changes were announced after Jeffers had already decided to pursue his master’s, but he still had enough time to calculate his costs and come up with a plan before starting school.

“I’m even still one of the lucky ones, because I can adjust and say, ‘OK, this is what I thought the expenditure was going to be, but now I know it’s going to be this much, and this is how much debt I’m going to incur,'” he said.

“It’s still very stressful. But for people who are in the middle of their master’s or their undergrad, it’s definitely a big change.”

Jeffers said some of his peers have decided not to pursue graduate studies due to the amount of debt they would have to take on.

Rory Norris, president of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance and a recent University of Waterloo graduate, said it’s hard to measure how the changes will affect students this year, since many are only now discovering what their OSAP funding will look like.