Tuition costs lessened for low income families
On Feb. 25, 2016, the Ontario provincial government announced a new initiative to ease the burden on post-secondary students from low-income Ontario families. After the government’s initial announcement, Premier Kathleen Wynne spoke at the Jarvis Collegiate Institute in Toronto, on March 1, 2016, to provide more information about how the government hopes future Ontarians will pay their tuition.
The new program, known as the Ontario Student Grant, will be one all-encompassing economic program which will consolidate and replace the collection of smaller student grants and programs that are currently available through the Ontario government. This new program will provide eligible students with a single non-repayable grant and will become available for application for the 2017/2018 academic year.
Current or prospective post-secondary students who come from families that earn $83,000 or fewer, are eligible for a grant to cover the tuition cost for their respective educational institution. The plan that has drawn more attention to the new grant program, and a fair share of controversy, is a separate new initiative that eliminates post-secondary debt from applicants who come from families where parents earn less than $50,000.
During her talk at Jarvis Collegiate, Wynne elaborated, “Providing affordable and accessible post-secondary education for everyone in the province, regardless of their background or circumstance, is an investment in Ontario’s future.
By supporting students from low- and middle-income families as they pursue a university degree or college diploma, our government is helping to build the highly skilled workforce that will generate economic growth, improve social mobility and create long-term, sustainable prosperity for our province.” While the newly announced financial program has, on the whole, been positively received, there are critics of the proposed student financial grant system. As of now, the Ontario government has not outlined whether the provided grant will simply eliminate the cost of tuition, or whether they will provide each student with enough money to cover the average cost of tuition in Ontario.
The figures that the Ontario government has been using to determine the cost of post-secondary education have excluded higher cost programs and degrees, such as an engineering degree. As such, the government’s current average cost of tuition is $6,160—instead of the substantially higher and more accurate figure of $7,868.
While this $1,700 gap may not strike some students as important, the discrepancy can mean the difference between enrolling in some form of post-secondary education or not. Housing and living costs aside, post-secondary students are also required to pay mandatory student fees on top of their tuition—a cost that can wildly vary from school-to-school. Last year, students at the University of Guelph had to pay $1,163.59 in mandatory student fees, an additional cost that will not be covered by the Ontario Student Grant.
While the fight for free—or at least affordable—post-secondary education is still ongoing, the Ontario Student Grant program provides post-secondary students some financial breathing room, and is a step in the right direction.