Students in Waterloo Region join protests against OSAP cuts

More than a thousand students hit the streets to protest cuts to OSAP. CTV’s Jeff Pickel reports.

Students in Waterloo Region joined their counterparts across the province as part of a movement meant to send a message to the provincial government about cuts to a student financial aid program.

More than a thousand students marched outside the University of Waterloo, as students expressed their concerns with changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP).

Last month, the provincial government announced it would be giving colleges and universities a major funding boost, lift a seven-year tuition freeze and decrease grant funding through OSAP. The change means many students will need to rely on loans to pay for their schooling.

Previously, approximately 85 per cent of OSAP funding was achieved through grants, but starting in the fall, students will receive a maximum of 25 per cent as grant money.

“What we’re seeing is that students are angry in ways we haven’t seen at this campus in decades,” Damian Mikhail, president of the Waterloo Undergraduate Student Association, said. “Students rely on this funding to get into their lives, and these cuts are unbelievable.”

Some students said that funding has made the pursuit of higher education possible.

“I’ve been on OSAP since first year and right now I work two jobs,” Belinda Wei, a geomatics student at the University of Waterloo, said.

Now, some students said even if they can go to college or university, they worry about being saddled with a crushing debt-loads post-graduation.

“If I can’t find a job and then I have all the skills I don’t know how I’ll just move on with life,” Zaynah Adnanjalil, an urban planning student at the University of Waterloo, said.

However, the province said the changes are necessary.

“To restore sustainability to OSAP and ensure its availability for future generations, our government is aligning Ontario’s student financial support framework with other jurisdictions across Canada,” Bianca Giacoboni, press secretary for the office Minister of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security Nolan Quinn, said in, in part, in a statement. “The Premier and the Minister have been clear that, due to billions of dollars of pressure on the program from the federal government’s decision to remove grant eligibility from students at private career colleges, coupled with increased program uptake in recent years, the OSAP framework was no longer sustainable.”

The statement also said the enhanced Student Access Guarantee will ensure low-income students continue to receive enough financial aid to cover tuition, books and mandatory fees.

According to the province OSAP cost 2.7 billion dollars this year.

With files from The Canadian Press