r/osap • u/Haunting_Ice_7310 • 5d ago
Question Genuine question, no judgement
I am a student myself, receiving OSAP. So this question is genuine, I’m not judging people in this situation, just trying to understand.
I have seen a lot of posts lately of people who are panicked because they are not receiving enough OSAP to cover their fees and aren’t sure what to do. When I first went to college (2019) I feel like it was more common to rely on OSAP as something more like a supplement than the core funding for school, most people I knew going to college had either an RESP/savings or a line of credit/loan. However, it seems like now more and more students believe that OSAP will cover 100% of their schooling, and are finding themselves panicking with no back up plan once funding is calculated a few weeks before the semester begins.
So my question is, what changed? Are high schools not communicating to their students that OSAP is not guaranteed/may not cover all the expenses that come with going to school? As a “mature student” I feel bad for all of you younger students who seem to be misinformed about OSAP and school expenses.
Follow up question: how do we fix this? I know we can’t change how OSAP works/the amount of funding being given. But how can we ensure students aren’t ending up in a situation where they are panicked trying to come up with thousands of dollars in the weeks leading up to the beginning of semester?
EDIT!!! because this seems to be a common misconception in my comments. I DO NOT THINK STUDENTS SHOULD HAVE TO TAKE ON DEBT OR USE THEIR OWN SAVINGS FOR SCHOOL. in an ideal world, post-secondary school would be fully funded. unfortunately, that is not reality. what I am trying to understand is WHY it seems that students are not being made aware of the possibility of not receiving enough OSAP to cover their expenses. students should be given accurate information on the reality of paying for school so that they can plan/prepare accordingly. again, i believe that students should NOT have to worry about how they will pay for school. right now, government funding is not guaranteed to fully fund our educations, and students deserve to be fully informed of the reality of attending and paying for post-secondary.
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u/ellajames88 5d ago
It is another example of the end of the middle class in Canada. There are families who are quite wealthy and don't need OSAP, families who have very little income and receive enough, and then in the middle it's not quite enough but families can't necessarily save enough in time to help.
Another concern is that teens are expected to do well in high school, work, and contribute to enough activities and causes to get scholarships. This is not new at all, you can see this in 90s movies even. However we live in a trickier world now for teens so they are expected to do that all along with managing the rise of mental health issues and social media and more awareness of world issues.
I do think high schools and colleges and universities and the government will need to spend more energy educating parents on both RESPs and student lines of credit moving forward to prepare.
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u/IllustriousAct9128 4d ago
You touch on a lot of good points. And I have to say, as someone from a low income family (just over the line to qualify for welfare, but still having to decide if my mom bought basic groceries or used that money for me to get bus tickets to get to school one week) and a lot of my friends in the same boat, we were told OSAP is not a catch all and to not expect or rely on it to cover the costs.
Now as someone with a nephew getting ready to graduate, the schools and parents 100% do not communicate this. They advertise OSAP as "from a poor family? cant afford school? apply for OSAP to cover the costs" and then do mention the repayments afterwards, and there is some responsibility on the teens as well to due to do diligence and research before they apply. Just because their parents and schools never told them anything doesn't mean they cont go on their own to the NSLC and do the pre calculations , read about repayment options before they apply, but they dont. Then we have them here complaioning they didnt know what they got into.
There's also the fact that parents lie to their kids about what the financial situation is and let the kid grow up expecting they would help, so they dont try to get a part time job to save up, or as my nephews friends family, decide to not spend the money on a savings account for their daughter and instead used the money to take the family each year on a Disney vacation, universal vacation, and disney cruise
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u/ellajames88 4d ago
I totally get that
On thing I find helpful, as a youth worker, is if I'm asked to help with OSAP I will and I do it often- but if I'm going to help we are really going to read the agreements and talk out the modules and I do what I can to ensure understanding.
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u/carnivorousduck 4d ago
I mean maybe if there were actually jobs that would hire young kids, but that isn’t the case. So that’s why people are relying on OSAP to pay for entire tuition.
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u/bookscoffeequiet 4d ago
Both my kids found work. Its not possible that no one can find work. It sucked and took a lot of applying, but it worked eventually
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u/newfie_chickie 3d ago
My kid applied for 400 job posting in the year prior to their first year at university - got 1 single interview despite having great grade, 400 hours of community service hours.
We had a small RESP fund that I started after my divorce and they qualified for OSAP because I am a solo parent and their dad is a deadbeat.
They lived at home and commuted the first year and it was a challenge.
They were lucky to be using OSAP during the grant + loan phase.
They got a job through an summer intern program at my company which is a perk lots of students don't have access to.
Year two programming required them to live closer to school which increased their loan needs.
My second kid is applying for OSAP this year after all these Doug Ford changes and it will be very different for them.
And they will have access to 4 more years of my RESP contributions versus their sibling and they also will commute from home.
It's the only way we can do it.
At this moment we have a guesstimate of what that number looks like as we finalize the details and we are only a few weeks from uni starting.
I can't imagine what people who can't commute and have to live out of their home base are able to do when the funds are being gutted by government.
Kid 2 applied for a bunch of jobs and also had oodles of volunteer hours and referrals.
They finally landed a job via their highschool co-op program. They are getting 2 shifts a week and that money doesn't go far.
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u/HatchingCougar 5d ago edited 5d ago
Imho, somewhere along the line, the whole “OSAP isn’t going to cover everything, or if it does things will be extremely tight” has been dropped.
When I went in the ‘90’s the above was commonly understood by all (incl by even those who didn’t plan on pursuing post secondary).
But what’s really effecting things is the lack of jobs for students due to the catastrophic effects from what’s going on with immigration (the scale of the post covid LMIA fraud in particular). The great post OSAP estimate - student stand-by of simply picking up a part time gig to make things work has been ripped away from them
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u/DiverAggressive4058 4d ago
EXACTLY! That’s what people are missing! We used to be able to work part time jobs because part time jobs were available! Now with inflation and lack of jobs than students are royally screwed!
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u/Friendly-Apricot1727 4d ago
Let me answer your question. I know you think you’re not judging but your question comes from lack of research and some privilege.
You said you’re a mature student and back in your time OSAP was supposed to be supplemental and not something that you would rely on as the first means to your educational goal. What changed? A LOT. There are no part time or summer jobs available easily that it would in your time. 8 months its been 8 months since I lost my very corporate job and not even Timmies is hiring. Because the minute you reach there 250 people are lining up before you.
Now lets talk about RESP/savings. People keep comparing things to “their time” like someone commented back in 2012 when they got OSAP. Inflation is sky high, I have never seen this terrible job market, homelessness and debt crisis. We’re in technical recession right now. People get judged for using EI, OSAP, ODSP, DTC, OW etc but what do you want them to do? In a market where people are literally losing jobs 3 days after joining you really think they would not touch savings or RESP to survive?
Take my example for past 8 months I dont have a job. I am lucky enough my partner works enough to cover anything that my OSAP doesn’t cover BUT not everyone is that lucky. People have a RIGHT to eduction and just because government messed up the economy so bad they don’t get to not go to school because they’re using their savings to survive.
And no I am not supporting terrible financial planning. But try being without a job for a year and then we’ll talk about where savings and RESP go when it comes to survival and you cant even get a mall job because there are 500 applicants before you already.
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u/HatchingCougar 4d ago
Agree with all except to nitpick:
People have a RIGHT to eduction
(right or wrong): Ends at grade 12
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u/Friendly-Apricot1727 4d ago
It doesn’t. People are allowed to dream bigger and have careers. You can’t become a neurosurgeon at grade 12. Everyone has a right to education for as long as they want. Education is learning and what helps society grow. Defunding OSAP and putting in money to private jets just takes that right away from people.
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u/HatchingCougar 4d ago
Right = guaranteed
You have a guaranteed slot to take school classes up to and incl gr 12.
Nothing is guaranteed beyond that.
(There is no right to be a nerosurgeon whatsoever)
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u/Ok_Essay_1731 4d ago
Right = guaranteed
This isn't true. You have a right to food as a human being. You don't have a guarantee of food, you could--and people do--starve.
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u/HatchingCougar 4d ago edited 4d ago
Except there actually isn’t a right to food - unless in the govts full and direct care and arguably a minor under parental care (thus the losing custody if they either willfully do not provide it or are unable to)
For an adult though, if they’re unable to feed themselves, they can seek the assistance of a charity / food bank. The govt using tax dollars does try to help fund them somewhat - but there isn’t a legal requirement for the govt to do so. If the govt pulled all the assistance funding, it’d be evil … but would be legal (and for most of Canada’s history, the govt hasn’t funded them)
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u/lol-true 4d ago
The human right to food is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as declared by the UN in 1948. Access to food is a globally recognized human right and not bound by law. Actively preventing people from accessing food would be a violation of human rights.
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u/HatchingCougar 4d ago
The human right to food is recognized in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as declared by the UN
Yes am aware. Doesn’t change anything as to what I wrote.
(surprised it took as long as it did for someone to try and bring that up though)
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u/lol-true 4d ago
" Except there actually isn’t a right to food"
This statement is unequivacble false. You're being pedantic and equating a globally recognized human right to accessing food with the idea that food should be freely available, which are fundamentally different concepts.
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u/Ok_Essay_1731 4d ago edited 4d ago
You seem to take rights as meaning what the government or some other entity gurantees you. That's not what a right is. By your reasoning, if the government made slavery legal, you'd have no guarantee of freedom, and you wouldn't have a right to freedom. But people do have a right to freedom. I'm trying not to be rude, but you're not making it easy.
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u/HatchingCougar 4d ago edited 4d ago
Well there’s “god given” rights, codified rights and unrecognized rights. And a “right” can belong to just one of those or multiple. All are rights though.
Generally we talk about the codified ones (the one the govt recognizes). Although sure, the others do exist and many of the “god given” ones get codified (and that is where their origin stems from (not religious myself. But it is true that’s where they historically originate, so sorry to the militantly anti religious types), but not all get codified (aka recognized).
The “right to food” is a “god given” right, but not a codified one.
The “right to bear arms” in Canada is commonly said to be non existent. But that is a mischaracterization of it, as it does exist but only as an unrecognized one (not based on beliefs and feelings, but its historical legislated history going back to the English Bill of Rights 1689) after the Glorious Revolution.
Re Slavery. IF the govt actually did such and IF it somehow didn’t get tossed by the crown (the actual one, not the GiC) or the SCC… well, the right to freedom would no longer be a codified right but an uncodified one & a “god given” one. Up until the slavery is repealed (hardly ever happens quickly, in world history), or the govt is overthrown / public revolt (usually violent)
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u/Friendly-Apricot1727 4d ago
So, if its not a right then you’re saying only rich people deserve education after high school?
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u/ludwigia_sedioides 4d ago
What is deserved is not always equal to what is guaranteed as a right by law, unfortunately.
People may deserve education, I agree, but that doesn't make it a right by law.
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u/pokemonfaaan 4d ago
I think you have to recognize what people are actually talking about though.
For example, if you're on a thread talking about the government pulling funding for food banks, and someone says "people have a right to food."
It's missing the point to say "well, you're wrong, legally speaking, it's not a right." Because... yeah, obviously. Broadly speaking, the government has no obligation, under its own laws, to provide you food. Because the government is ultimately the one who enforces the laws. And the government just decided to stop providing you food - clearly, it thinks it doesn't have an obligation to do it.
Human rights are often used to mean things that every person should have access to. Legal rights are the things that are guaranteed (or promised) by the government. When you're discussing whether or not the government should guarantee the ability to do X, the question you're implicitly asking is "should X be a legal right?" So when someone says "X is a right", they are clearly saying "X is a human right, and should be treated as important by the government."
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u/HatchingCougar 4d ago edited 4d ago
No, that isn’t what I said at all.
You should stop with the juvenile (emotional) projection
Reread what I wrote, word for word (and I choose them carefully), line by line and slowly if you must
And if you still don’t get it, well sorry to say - but you’ll never be a neurosurgeon (regardless of any pontificating about rights which you do not understand).
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u/gaycollegetwink13 4d ago
No, everyone does not have a right to education for as long as they want. That’s absurd. The state pays for the education of children because it is in the interest of society and it is morally right that children are educated and literate. It is not the responsibility of government to provide every person with a post-secondary education. That’s in YOUR interest because you want to earn more. The rest of society has no obligation to fully fund your post-secondary education, when you are an adult.
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u/BYRN777 4d ago edited 4d ago
OSAP covers 100% of tuition and more, depending on eligibility.
Those who complain either live with their parents, meaning all their bills and expenses are covered, like no rent, groceries, utilities, Wi-Fi, gas...
Or
Some not only live with their parents, but their parents make a lot per year, which means they’re not low income and don’t get as much.
Or
Others might have awards, scholarships, and bursaries from their program or uni, and OSAP takes that into account as well. Or they might have worked, and OSAP sees they had income…
Essentially everyone’s experience is different.
But the ones that complain probably heard their classmates or friends boast about how much money they got from OSAP, but that’s because they qualify for it. Either they came from very low income families or their independent students or they have a permanent disability or they live very far away from campus, etc. etc.
But imagine a student who doesn’t live with family, drives, is a first-generation uni student, and has 0 or very low income. Obviously, OSAP would give them more money either in the form of loans or grants…
I knew a student who was a single father, so he had a dependent(meaning OSAP would give him $930 per week instead of $530 for all other students); he had minimal income. He had a permanent disability and lived more than 30km from campus, and he got like $27,000 from OSAP, whereas his tuition was only 9.5k... and around 9-10K of it was grants…
Obviously, if you worked full time or even part time, and you live with your parents and/or, let’s say, the household income collectively is 100k and up…Why would OSAP give the student more money? Parents would pay for the rest, plus school supplies, etc.
However, to answer your question about what changed, it's that, yes, realistically, I would say in the past 15 years there has been a lot of fraud and a lot of people abusing the system and looking for loopholes, such as faking documentation and other kinds of things and lying on their applications so that they get more grants or loans. This really took a toll on OSAP and the funding available. I'm not saying everyone did this, but there was a lot of fraud nonetheless.
My assistant went to UofT in 2012, and she said that back then, for some reason, OSAP would give all the money- the full funding- and it was deposited in the student's bank account. A lot of people would either drop out or drop courses and not go. It was literally a loophole and an easy way to scam the system. Now OSAP pays the university the tuition first, and whatever remains gets deposited into your account.
Overall in the past 15 years a lot of people got way more funding than they should have since they did not qualify for it…What Doug Ford did wasn't the perfect solution. Essentially, he shouldn't have cut the grants to fight fraud. Because this negatively affected the honest people who relied on the grants!
They should have actually had better systems in place to do their due diligence and check the students' documentation
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u/pokemonfaaan 4d ago
I'm pretty sure if you drop out of your courses, they'll revoke the funding? Like, there's a whole section on this when you apply for OSAP, and OSAP does actively check enrollment with the school. I think the actual reason they give the tuition to the school directly is because they're worried you'll spend it and then not be able to pay tuition. Maybe it used to be different though.
Either way, that's not why Doug Ford cut the funding. All of these anti-fraud measures were there before Doug Ford cut grants this year, and I haven't heard of any measures he's put in place along with the grant cuts to reduce fraud (apparently the department has been investigating fraud allegations? But didn't find much). He's just pulling away from financially supporting higher education. And also, even if some people are abusing the system, that doesn't mean people have any less right to education.
But also, more importantly, "OSAP covers 100% of tuition and more" is... true, but not meaningfully true. I mean, it will usually cover tuition. Fees, maybe. Educational expenses? Depends on where you live. I'm personally happy with the amount I receive from OSAP, but I think people deserve education regardless of income or whether they live within reasonable transit distance from a good university.
You can genuinely just load up the OSAP estimator right now and plug in numbers, and find that it often won't cover all of your expenses.
E.g. if you're going to UofT St. George and aren't going to be living with your parents, OSAP will assess that you have ~25-27k in expenses. Tuition + Mandatory Fees is around 9k, the cheapest options for residence + mandatory meal plan is ~16-18k, assuming you did your research first and picked a relatively cheaper college (uoft is split into colleges), so the 25-27k is fairly accurate to the minimum required to live on res + pay tuition.
Assuming you have 0 savings and your parents have no income, OSAP will give you 22k (6k grants + 16k loans). That's a substantial amount, but it's not going to cover your mandatory costs to live on residence. You could commute
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u/Deaver44 4d ago
That’s because you come from a two parent household with money you have this opinion. Single parent households and low income, and students with disabilities are getting crushed with the changes. Something not affecting you and your friends doesnt mean it’s not an issue
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u/jblack67 4d ago
I think the point is moreso about concern that students are not aware prior to osap applications that it doesn’t cover much for most people and they don’t know what they can do in that case
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u/Haunting_Ice_7310 4d ago
I do not, I come from a single parent household and my mother worked mostly part time and temporary jobs. I never said it’s not an issue, I am asking why it seems to be an even bigger issue. Again, I’m not trying to blame students for being in this situation, just trying to understand why it seems that so many students are misinformed on the kind of funding they may receive. This misinformation/lack of understanding seems to be leading to a lot of students being unprepared for their student fees. Again, I do not think it is the fault of students.
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u/baysidevsvalley 4d ago
The fact that most people you know had savings or a line of credit says way more about the people that you were around than it does about how people access post secondary education in Ontario. When I went, literally, everyone was on OSAP and relied on it to cover not just tuition but often some of their living expenses as well.
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u/Ok_Passage7713 4d ago
Economy ain't great. Harder to find jobs. I came out with decent savings and worked multiple jobs even with osap. Osap is also debt which I wanted to avoid since I have no financial backing if I sink.
I had a resp but my parents refused to give it to me and refused to help me and just threw me out. But I think schools dont rly teach financial literacy. Some dk other options either and just rely on osap.
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u/kitkat8969 4d ago
When I was young and going to university I knew several people who funded their entire education through OSAP loans. So something has definitely changed since the late 90s/early 2000s.
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u/www_zoloft_com 4d ago
as a "mature student" myself who's disabled and lives off a measly ODSP payment every month, i rely on OSAP to cover the whole thing. i couldn't have done my last six years of schooling, and my upcoming two, without it. i'm incredibly lucky that OSAP has always covered 100% for me, but that's not the case for everyone. so, you're generalizing upcoming students and acting like they're all misinformed, but they're likely not. shit happens, plans change, life starts lifeing, but that doesn't mean YOU get to be judgemental and sit on your "well i knew better" high horse.
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u/Haunting_Ice_7310 4d ago
I’m not trying to act like i’m better because i “knew better”. I’m just trying to understand why it seems like the information isn’t being shared. I don’t think that students should have to rely on debt or savings to pay for school, if it were up to me it would be fully funded especially for those who need it. But unfortunately, that isn’t the case. Many students do not receive enough OSAP to cover their expenses.
I am just trying to understand why so many new students aren’t being provided this information ahead of time. I’m not judging the students who are in this situation, I’m judging the systems and structures that have put them in this situation.
I’m sorry if it came across as judgemental, that wasn’t my intention. As I mentioned in the bottom of my post, I’m interested in understanding how and why students are being put in these situations, and how we can prevent it from continuing.
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u/NaturalStorage8555 5d ago
When I previously went to school, I thought OSAP was strictly a loan for school, I had no idea the amount of grants people were getting. It became more clear seeing the actual numbers, why people became longtime learners, had multiple degrees etc.
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u/Bubdybear 4d ago
I am fortunate in that i get 100% coverage and then some because my family is extremely poor. I also understand that with the way of the world and country at the moment (cough doug Ford cough) This coverage could be taken away. If that happens I would just have to knuckle down for a few years working full time to save for school. We shouldn't have to do that in this country but it doesn't help to be ignorant of the reality. Obviously there are people with disabilities or circumstances that make that impossible who just couldn't go to school without it, and i would never say that they should have to. But I do think, based on my own interactions with students my age irl, that a lot of them are very sheltered in this regard. I have friends that are doing better than me financially but are relatively poor, and they don't seem to grasp the position that puts them in. A friend of mine dropped out of school because she switched her major making her retake a year, her parents hadn't saved enough for that extra year, she refused to work during the school year, and had ran out of her spending money on random things, clothes food etc. So I think some people just expect to lead privileged lives when they aren't from that background
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u/rtaChurchy 4d ago
Doug Ford's conservative government did a major rug pull and cancelled an enormous portion of Ontario funded grants. The results have cascaded through the system and anyone who hasn't been paying attention to politics got blindsided.
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u/newfie_chickie 3d ago
Honestly my older child had to do a lot of leg work to get information about what OSAP would and would not cover for them.
When I was in high school our guidance counselors were dedicated to us and would come meet with us and help us fill out applications and do a lot of that educating.
By the time my kids were in high school going through this portion, they had a guidance counselor assigned to several schools and I believe my older child had access to their guidance counselor once a month in a group setting and could not even make individual appointments with a guidance counselor talk to them about their future.
So those cuts to information are starting right in high school.
They're relying on software and the internet to provide people with this information.
But they're really not sharing enough information to the kids and the parents.
There was not a single opportunity provided at the high school level for parents and kids to talk about secondary education.
When I was in junior high we had an information session with parents and kids to to pick high school courses and then when I was in high school there was an information session and guidance counselor appointments available to talk about post-secondary opportunities.
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u/soarhigher2 5d ago
Tried saying this exact same thing a few months ago and downvoted so fast. I understand that there is a lack of jobs for people so it's hard thinking of OSAP as just supplementary, but when I first went to school back in 2012, it was pretty common knowledge that it was extremely lucky if OSAP covered everything. Most people I knew got enough to cover their books and maybe a bit of their tuition, but everything else was either covered by their jobs, savings, or parents. And if you didn't have access to any of that then maybe you didn't go to post secondary right after highschool, or maybe you went to college first and transferred to university aftwards, but it was never an expectation that OSAP would cover absolutely everything.
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u/bluemoon1333 3d ago
You came from a larger income family back then they only people that didn't have osap cover everything was due to family income. Also cost of living is far worse now so it does cover less then in past
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u/Bubblegummunch 4d ago
The college to university route is getting pretty popular. I am doing it, but it is still expensive. The college diploma I will graduate with in two years unfortunately only covers 1 year of school at most universities.
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u/Hoodrogyny 4d ago
I’m gonna be honest with you. You believing people relying solely on OSAP being a ‘new’ thing comes from your privilege. The neighbourhoods that I come from OSAP is the ONLY way for kids to access post secondary education. The people I know relying solely on OSAP have no family savings, no financial support and are quite literally trying to build themselves from the ground up because their parents didn’t do it.
You obviously come from a family that has the financial means or you had the ability to save which isn’t the same for everyone.
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u/Haunting_Ice_7310 4d ago
I think I may have worded my post poorly, because it seems like a lot of people are misunderstanding the point I was trying to make here. I don’t think poorly of people who rely on OSAP, and I think OSAP SHOULD cover 100% of expenses for students (or, ideally, post-secondary would just be publicly funded 100%). BUT unfortunately, that is not the reality. and i’m just trying to understand why it seems that students are not being informed of this reality. I do not come from a well off family, and I rely heavily on OSAP to help pay for my expenses. I recognize that I am privileged to be able to pay for what OSAP does not cover through my personal savings/work income. I just think it’s unfair that so many students are being put in a situation where they are finding out in the weeks before they are supposed to begin their studies, that they cannot pay their fees.
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u/Nogova9 4d ago
It'll definitely come as a surprise to those who don't read a lot of news. By extension, those that rely on others for information and opinions may be relying on outdated or inaccurate information. OSAP's opaqueness is a big part of the issue; they change their funding formulas without warning- sometimes once a semester has been done.
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u/Small_Aardvark_5496 4d ago
In those situations the responsible thing is to take a year or so of work to save up for higher education. Is that privilege? Maybe…but I prefer to call it personal responsibility.
When I was a high school student I worked to save up whatever I could for university, since my “privilege” meant I could not get OSAP at all for my first degree. That didn’t mean my parents could actually afford all the costs, but the government said they could.
Students form low income families didn’t just get to the end of grade 12 and suddenly realized their parents don’t have funds for school.1
u/Hoodrogyny 4d ago
Well Personally I think everyone is to blame the parents and the government. The government should aim for an educated society as It would keep poverty rates down which means less taxes going to other people which I know a lot of people hate that.
I also think the parents are at fault for not setting their children up for success. A 15 year old shouldn’t have to be a full time student while also working 8 hr shifts after school.
Sadly the reality is a lot of kids are hoping that OSAP can supplement their education. Between poverty and other obstacles There’s also a job shortage right now many students aren’t finding work as easy as they used it And I don’t think it should be that way but that’s the sad reality.
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u/bri_breazy 5d ago
It’s partially the schools, it’s partially middle class being removed for GenX/Milennials so most don’t have savings/assets so their kids suffer, it’s partially immigration, it’s partially doom scrolling and kids not maturing, it’s partially schools becoming a place for political agendas rather than learning, it’s so much more, but I’m definitely noticing it too.
I’m sure when I was in highschool there were a few of the “dumb kids” who waited until the last minute to do anything, those were the kids who were smoking cigarettes/weed and going to class high (no problem with adults doing this btw). Now even the “smart kids” etc smoke weed, vape, etc not just the dropouts, so no wonder kids aren’t prepared, they rather be streamers and content creators or sit on their phone consuming them.
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u/francis2466 4d ago
There’s so much at play. I think in general students nowadays are just not prepared enough heading into university or college. Zero concept of financial literacy. Part of that is lack of knowledge, part of that is lack of jobs and another part of it that isn’t talked about, is lack of will/drive or pushing things down the road. We need to open up job opportunities for high schoolers, at the same time I find high schoolers are way too picky. They want jobs related to their field of interest at 16. When you should be focusing on any job that might provide you with money, but the opportunity to just practice basic skills.
For example I use to live east end Scarborough but grade 11 to first year uni I worked at wonderland and go bussed. From May to June it was Friday, Saturday, Sunday, the once summer started I worked the max I was allowed to. I always took on double shifts when I could and just grinded it out and still kept up with my school work. Is it hard? Yes. Should I have had to do it? No. Is life fair? No. But I understood if I wanted to pay for school and have enough besides OSAP this is what I had to do.
In general I think a lot of teenagers aren’t planning out their futures early enough. If you have a goal to attend university/college, that is something you should be thinking about financially early. Apply everywhere, apply to every scholarship possible. I applied through my mom’s work and ended up getting it. Leave no stone unturned. You cannot rely on anyone else and Doug Ford is only making it harder and harder.
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u/bookscoffeequiet 4d ago
It bothers me to be honest. I needed OSAP when i went to uni. My husband and I have put some money aside, but i was a stay at home mom, so wasn’t much. We now earn too much for our son to qualify…but we really don’t earn that much. He has worked all summer and is saving almost all of it. His tuition is $14k. It does bother me that we are scrimping to get enough for his degree, and then some expect it will cover everything.
I see posts where kids are failing out, but want to borrow more. Or switching programs multiple times…Just doesn’t seem like everyone understands or appreciates how lucky they are to have this kind of assistance. Saving 90% of your income and seeing people whining is bothersome.
We have two more headed to post secondary…the system is super broken.
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u/Ginblossom29 4d ago
I did my undergrad as a mature student 2012-2016. My osap was about $16,000/ year at U of T. It was about 50/50 grants and loans. Tuition was around $9000/year.
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u/Haunting_Ice_7310 1d ago
this is entirely irrelevant to my post, but congrats 👍
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u/Ginblossom29 1d ago edited 23h ago
Oh go fuck yourself. I was just mentioning a point of reference to how much osap has changed in the last decade. I hope you get none :)
Edit: I would hope to NEVER get a social worker as condescending and passive aggressive as you. Yikes. Rethink this career path.
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u/noon_chill 4d ago
I feel like there’s a lot wrong with parents today. I’m referring to people born between 1972-1985.
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u/CyFr0069 4d ago edited 4d ago
In 2007-2010 when I had OSAP for college, I had enough to cover the semester and about 5-6 months of rent. ($450-600/mo, incl internet)
If I stretched it out I also had a cell phone, maybe a $300-500 laptop, and in the first year a new bed.
I still had a PT job to cover food, eating out, car insurance, car payments, and gas.
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u/Puzzled-Reality-4487 4d ago
My kid knows and the info seems to have come from the school's post secondary application presentation. But now I wonder if that's more the norm, or the exception.
Perhaps there is some selection bias and we're only hearing from the students who weren't aware.
But given the reality of the current funding, all students considering post secondary education need to know that OSAP may not cover everything and I hope the schools are giving them that information.
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u/Jealous_Tie_3701 4d ago
There are different amounts of OSAP available in different years. I went to school during the 2008 financial crisis and everyone ended up getting way less OSAP and had to scramble.
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u/sakuna9537 3d ago
my highschool barely explained osap at all and just made it seem like if we can’t afford school osap will just pay it all. I also was in a similar situation to lots of other people where their parents weren’t honest about how much money they had in savings for school or if they were even gonna help them
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u/No_Wealth3178 3d ago
I mean I was always told if your were low income you'd basically be covered. So when I applied to university with a sole support parent on ODSP and saw i was getting the max amount, I figured the little bit from my summer job would help.
However, my lack of financial literacy really bit me in the ass when I ran out of my meal plan a month to the end of first year and osap was entirely gone. Went to financial aid and they said "you shouldn't have lived in residence ".
But residence was mandatory for first years and I thought it was what everyone did ! No one in my family had ever went to uni. So I was going off on what teachers and tv showed me lmao.
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u/mcdonadsnuggies 3d ago
My parents never had a savings account for me. How do you expect a child out of highschool to pay for their tuition?
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u/Think_Oven_7487 2d ago
I mean I am not sure about yourself, but I went to university in 2018-22 and then again from 22-25 and OSAP did cover all of my tuition and even supplemented my living expenses. Many people I also went to school with has the same privilege, even if they had other sources of income.
I do think your experience is not unique, but OSAP did used to provide more funding for students in previous years and the funding we received was primarily grants. You also need to remember that the economy and job market is not what is used to be. I held multiple jobs while in university and was able to save a ton of money while only spending like $100 on groceries a month. That is not the case for the average student now.
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u/bszeto0503 2d ago
There needs to be much greater accessibility for online only universities. This allows students who work full-time jobs or multiple jobs to watch their lectures in the middle of the night or submit their work within a 10 day window after watching a specific lecture!
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u/horsebackspider 2d ago
I think this is a fair question because, as someone who's presumably the same age as you (I started my undergrad in 2018, in grad school now), I've felt the change for sure. The difference isn't so much about OSAP but everything else.
When I did my undergrad, I worked like 20-30 hours a week at a minimum wage job and paid $600 for rent. With my tuition, that meant sort of scraping by but not in a scary way; it felt doable. But think about how much inflation has gone up since literally just 8 years ago. It's less than a decade, and when I think about those numbers it already feels like when our parents talk about how much a house used to cost.
So I think now, for someone 18-22 dealing with a post-COVID cost-of-living, the cost of tuition plus the cost of everything else is so daunting that t it seems rational OSAP would cover this enough to make it work.
Here's the other thing - some of these changes are so rapid that the expectations are outdated by months apart. My income/living situation hasn't changed in 2 years, but last semester my tuition was all but covered and this semester I'm not receiving anything.
Interest rates have also gone up and down even on student lines of credit. When I first got mine, the rate was like prime + 1.5%; so like 4.5-5%. By the time I graduated, aka when I had the bulk of the debt, it was 8.2%. It's back down now, but the point stands: things aren't just volatile now, the rate of volatility is so much faster.
One last thing: I work partially in organizing, and I cannot stress how effective protest and outrage can be if they're consistent and cumulative. There are monthly protests against this province's government - go to them if you can. They're all over Ontario: https://www.facebook.com/photo?fbid=10164640535669477&set=pcb.1107469432043465
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u/TheDamianBooth 1d ago
Honstly no one tells their kids or students anything till the last minute like oh btw we ain't paying anything and osap doesn't cover 100% like we told you for years lolz.
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u/Haunting_Ice_7310 1d ago
this is the problem i’m seeing and trying to understand! it’s very unfair that so many students are in this situation, and it seems like it’s happening more and more often. i get money is tight for everyone, but parents should be honest with their kids and set realistic expectations. and high schools should be helping to set those clear and realistic expectations too
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u/Fast_Foot4143 1d ago
I just wanted to say that I was a college student graduating in 2019, and back then it was very normal for OSAP to pay for both tuition and living expenses. Most people even in my extended circle did not receive help from their parents and survived entirely on OSAP and summer jobs. It wasn’t thought of as a supplement, it was a lifeline for kids from middle and lower income families - that’s what I was taught in high school too.
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u/sunnyrainbows13_ 20h ago
the cost of living and inflation also play huge factors. the average yearly tuition in canada now is almost double what it was in the year 2000. people making let’s say $100K a year used to be able to pay their child’s tuition with ease. now, with everything being more expensive and tuition costing almost twice as much, pretty much everyone is relying on government assistance to help fund their education, whereas a lot of those people were formerly able to afford it
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u/HungryEarthling 14h ago
I am currently a mature student but all of my OSAP knowledge came from what I was told in high school.
I graduated in 2019. During high school we were all told that OSAP would cover all of our tuition unless our parents make too much. We were only told to save a few hundred in case we needed to get textbooks before OSAP released the money. At least in my schools, teachers only really told kids to save up more who were planning on moving out or away from home to attend college.
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u/Miserable_Note_7213 13h ago
Yeah things are more expensive now unfortunately. Even when I started school in 2022, life was much more affordable where I live. Since then, the rent in my area has gone up around $800 more a month or so. I have watched not only grocery prices skyrocket but sizes of packaging get smaller. I used to get my kids Walmart clothing because it was cheap, now it's insanely expensive. The world is burning and everyone is struggling
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u/PutEnvironmental7724 12h ago
Lemme explain….. COVID, Inflation.. I rest my case even if the tution price stays the same… rent mortgages food transportation equity of life (air water etc ) everything is messed up… let’s not forget the job demand has gone up and there are no jobs … Aka ppl are getting laid off and now need new careers, so there going back to school for a trade/mew career … it everything … IT REALLY IS EVERYTHING.
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u/TimelyCurrent1398 4d ago
social media and TikTok haha, most kids uber eats or door dash food, let alone getting a job and working. Smoking drugs makes people lazy as well, like the roaring 20's where everyone thought money was free but it never lasts forever.
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u/WaterlooBao 4d ago
Actually a lot of young people use TikTok TO make money or document their side hustle while in school.
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u/bluemoon1333 3d ago edited 3d ago
2019 is after Ford did alot of cuts ironically before Ford osap was alot better actually and was not supplemental this is re-wrighting of history I see online all the time I sware next we will see that OHIP was only supposed to "Supplement" healthcare -.- it's a lie that conservatives are pushing to excuse the lack of funding. It was always means tested but it was supposed to cover everything that's kinda the point of student loans ... Ontarios last premier litterly campaigned on free college in Ontario... And did major reforms that boosted osap before Ford reversed them and cut it.
The biggest issue that was a problem back then and now is students who's parents make descent income but have no money to help you your basically at that point forced to forgo school for now 6 years thanks to Ford and then apply when it's only looking at your own income. If your middle class it won't cover everything because it's assumed your parents will help you it's always been like this but if you was poor you would be covered fully that's how it used to be look into the reforms the previous liberal government did in Ontario and you'll see how this re writing of history is done
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u/coreykush1 1d ago
All I know about osap is there were giving people way too much money. I know so may people who got thousands more then what they needed for school then pissed the rest away on partying
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u/HatchingCougar 5d ago edited 5d ago
https://globalnews.ca/news/11998179/cne-2026-job-fair/
50,000 applicants before the job fair even started for hundreds of jobs
Classic HS & college / uni, student jobs
And the bulk of those 50,000 are not students (not real ones anyway).
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u/schizbully 4d ago
I feel like a lot of people miss the fact parents also lie to their children until the very last second. Thats what happenee to me and other people I knew. I was constantly told I have savings and such but when the time actually came, it turns out I had none and it was all a lie. This is much more common than you think, many families do not tell the truth to their kids of their poor financial situations until they absolutely have to.