Ontario's OSAP Freeze on Private Colleges Leaves Trillium Students Facing $1,400 to $1,900 Monthly Bills

Ontario's pause on OSAP payments to private post-secondary institutions is about a month old. For students at Trillium College, the bills are coming due before the province has explained how they will be covered.

Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn announced the freeze in early October, saying an audit found "serious concerns" about how OSAP money was used at some private schools. The province also paused some funding through Better Jobs Ontario, which supports unemployed people training for in-demand work.

What the province says it found

The audit pointed to common ownership, involvement of immigration service firms and inadequate student validation, according to the province's description. The ministry has also alleged that thousands of OSAP applications came from a single IP address.

Quinn's office, in a statement from Bianca Giacoboni, said "evidence of systemic issues that have compromised the integrity of the OSAP system left our government with no choice but to pause OSAP payments to all private institutions to protect taxpayer dollars and hold bad actors accountable."

Career Colleges Ontario has warned the government repeatedly about suspicious OSAP usage at a few colleges. Freedom-of-information data obtained by The Canadian Press show usage at some schools rising by several hundred per cent, and in some cases by more than 1,000 per cent, over three years.

Quinn has not named any specific colleges under suspicion. Trillium's campuses were not among the six where he denied OSAP eligibility earlier this year.

Ford: investigation must finish

Ford said today, Nov. 4, that KPMG will prioritize low-risk colleges as the freeze continues. He said his government cannot jeopardize the OPP investigation or the KPMG work.

On Oct. 27 he said OSAP "fraudsters" should go to jail. Today he repeated that "criminals" who scammed taxpayers belong behind bars.

The taxpayer-protection goal is not in dispute. The argument is over method. The freeze covers every private institution: career colleges, private universities, chiropractic and naturopathic colleges, and performing arts schools such as Canada's National Ballet School. Those schools and their students have condemned the sweeping action and say any consequences should target suspected bad actors.

Trillium students caught mid-program

Trillium College has campuses in St. Catharines, Kingston, Oshawa, Sudbury and Cobourg. It stopped in-person and online classes on Oct. 17 to look into "viable financial arrangements" for students hit by the OSAP and Better Jobs Ontario interruptions. An Oct. 30 email told students classes are set to resume Nov. 9.

Students who relied on OSAP have been offered interest-free payment plans of roughly $1,400 to $1,900 a month. Many have said they cannot make those payments without OSAP. The college's email warns that if a payment is missed, declined or returned, a student's attendance "may be temporarily paused."

Angele Proulx, 46, is enrolled in the community and developmental service worker program at the Niagara campus. She is about three to four months from graduating, has completed 127 of 540 required placement hours, and lives in a St. Catharines shelter. Her outstanding balance is $5,844, with a minimum payment of $1,461 a month or $365.25 a week.

Proulx told CBC she can only afford groceries and transportation. She says she is forgoing prescribed medication after a recent stroke, and that she sold her car to try to keep her housing but lost it anyway.

"They can't just take that away from us and offer no emergency funding, no help, no grace period, no nothing," she said. She told the St. Catharines Standard the pause feels like the government is "setting us up for failure on purpose."

Proulx and other OSAP recipients had not expected to start repaying until six months after graduation. Students were originally asked to confirm they could meet the payments by Oct. 16 or face withdrawal.

Other programs and an earlier cut

The pause is also reaching programs tied to workforce needs. The Canadian Press reported Nov. 3 that paramedic students bound to work in underserved areas are affected.

The freeze follows a spring cut to OSAP. The Ford government reduced the non-repayable grant portion to 25 per cent from 85 per cent, which prompted student protests across Ontario.

What the province has offered so far

Giacoboni's statement said the government is working to "develop options for low-interest, third-party loans facilitated by financial institutions" to carry students through the transition. Quinn's office has not given a clear timeline.

Trillium College told CBC Niagara the academic pause was needed to reorganize its operations, protect education students have already completed and set up a stable environment for them to keep working toward graduation.

Classes are scheduled to resume Nov. 9. Neither the province nor Trillium has said whether the promised loans will exist by then, or how students like Proulx will cover payments of $1,461 a month in the meantime.

The KPMG review and the OPP investigation have no announced end date.