Tuition set to rise, OSAP grants lower with new Ontario post-secondary funding changes: minister

The province announced billions in new funding for Ontario's colleges and universities Thursday, along with the end of a years-long tuition freeze and changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program grant structure.

Ontario’s Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn said the “historic” $6.4-billion funding model — to be paid out over the next four years — will help institutions provide competitive programs, high standards of education and be “resilient” to growing demands in the future, he said.

“Our post-secondary institutions are the pipeline that builds our future workforce,” he said at a news conference Thursday. “These students will drive our economy in the future so we need to strengthen schools today.”

The announcement comes in response to a post-secondary financial crisis, following years of low levels of government funding, stagnant tuition levels and a sharp reduction in the number of international students.

Quinn said the federal government’s international student policy change in 2024 created “unprecedented instability” in the post-secondary sector, along with growing pressure to continue providing high quality education. 

But this announcement is just “window dressing,” said Liberal education critic John Fraser, and comes too late for institutions that have already had to cut crucial programs and nearly 10,000 staff members to manage funding challenges.

“I’m sick and tired of these dog and pony shows where we talk about ‘historic’ and ‘generational.’ Let’s get real, we all know this is not enough,” he said. 

“The reality is [Doug Ford’s government] starved colleges. They allowed colleges to rely on foreign students, because they didn’t have to take money out of the treasury.”

He said representatives for post-secondary associations and schools at the news conference were “hostages,” who had to “play nice with the government” in order to support students, staff and current programming. 

If he was in their position, Fraser said, he would be upset the funding changes didn’t come years earlier.

From the 2026-2027 school year, publicly-assisted colleges and universities will be able to raise tuition fees by up to two per cent per year for the next three years — which Quinn says is one of the lowest tuition increases in the country.

There are also changes coming to the allocation of Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) funding for eligible students, with grants reduced to a maximum of 25 per cent and loans increased to a minimum of 75 per cent. 

This shift will ensure the sustainability of the program as its budget has been quickly rising, Quinn said. He added the province would follow in the federal government’s footsteps to 

Currently students can receive a maximum of 85 per cent as grants — which do not have to be repaid — and a minimum of 15 per cent as loans that need to be paid back.