Replacing student grants with loans will result in crippling student debt

For years, I have met students and parents in Orléans who share the same concern: Can we actually afford post-secondary education?

Whether it’s a Grade 12 student at Béatrice-Desloges, Cairine Wilson or St. Peter, or a parent working two jobs to help their child attend university or college, the question is no longer about ambition. It’s about affordability.

That is why the Ford govern-ment’s recent changes to OSAP are so troubling.

Beginning in 2026–27, the structure of student assistance will shift dramatically. Under the previous model, grants made up the clear majority of support, in some cases covering roughly 85% of assistance, with loans representing the smaller share. That approach reduced upfront financial pressure and limited the long-term debt burden students carried after graduation. In a stunningly callous decision, the Ford government is restructuring OSAP so that loans will make up at least 75% of support while grants are slashed to just 25%, knowingly forcing thousands of students deeper into debt.
In plain language: higher monthly payments and years of worrying about how to pay it back.

This is not a minor adjustment. It is potentially life-altering. Student debt affects when young people can buy a home, start a family or get ahead in a province where each generation is already being asked to carry more than the last.

Ontario once led the country in making post-secondary education more accessible. Today, we sit near the bottom in per-student funding. That is not the standard families in Orléans expect. We should be leading the country, not trailing behind it. Investing in students is an investment in our economy.

We are told this shift is about “sustainability.” But when the Premier suggests students are spending OSAP on extravagances and tells young people to simply look harder for work while youth unemployment in Ontario sits around 16%, it sends a clear message – their struggles are being dismissed.

Students are already telling us what this means for them: increased financial stress, tougher choices about whether to study full-time and in some cases, reconsidering whether to attend at all.

In Orléans, we believe in hard work. We believe in opportunity. And we believe that if you earn your place in college or university, the door should stay open.

Fixing OSAP does not mean writing blank cheques. It means restoring balance so grants, not loans, are available for students who need it most.

If we are serious about building a stronger Ontario economy then it must begin with investing in the students who will power it.

It’s time to fix OSAP. ASAP.