OSAP may no longer be a good option

Journalist: Adrian Reece

Education has been a path to advancement for many people who come from lower economic circles, as well as maintaining generational wealth for those people who come from it. For many The Ontario Student Assistance Program or OSAP has been the only way that students can afford to go to college and university and become qualified to get jobs that can change their lives.

There are around 920,000 full time students who take OSAP. Two thirds of students require help to fund their education. OSAP is typically broken up between loans and grants and graduates are made to pay back these loans when they’ve finished their education. While these amounts add up, the thought is that you will be able to receive a high paying position and pay back all your loans in full within a couple of years. Grants typically assume a large portion of the amount received for a person’s school tuition.

Doug Ford has made a huge change to the OSAP structure, which disadvantages many people. He has now shifted the split to a maximum of 25% in grants and 75% in loans, so now graduates will have more to pay back after school is completed. They will spend more time and resources digging themselves out of debt for their education.

Ford recently spoke about the change and encouraged people to go into careers like healthcare, however many people are criticizing his words, and he is known for cutting budgets to healthcare, which makes it more difficult and more competitive for people to enter the health care field, even though we are understaffed and underfunded already.

With so many relying on assistance programs, this is a new move that pushes people further into debt for longer periods and creates a larger divide among socio-economic classes. With more of your income going towards larger debts that are earning a huge amount of interest, Canadians are once again being pushed farther into poverty.

Jobs are disappearing and young people are being encouraged to commit to high interest loans that take years to pay off in an economy where the job market is a struggle to navigate and wait times for open positions that take weeks to months to fill. Many individuals have the same qualifications and therefore hundreds of people apply to the same position, to the point where employers don’t even see your application.

The repayment period for OSAP is around nine and half years, however it can take up to 15 years to completely clear it up. This is a large amount of time, and most people won’t pay off their student loans until their mid to late 30s assuming they graduate in their early 20s.

By increasing the amount people must pay back, either they will not be able to afford their necessities, or they will end up spending more than 15 years to pay back This balance that accrues interest at a high rate. This does not account for graduate school, which can take up to 25 years or more to fully pay off.

People won’t be able to afford homes, with this kind of debt hanging over their heads, and with the difficulty in getting jobs they may spend their entire lives attempting to pay back these hefty loans that are dragging them deeper into debt regardless of the income level they have reached after receiving a post-secondary education.