Government plans to increase flexibility for students using financial aid
Student on a computer | Photo: CC0
The Government of Ontario has announced plans to make the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) easier to use.
“In terms of the structure of OSAP, these are quite major changes,” said Asim Mohammad, senior manager of the financial assistance office at George Brown College (GBC).
The new changes, which include giving students more control over how much financial aid they withdraw, ending the requirement for students to report their vehicle as an asset, helping students predict how much they are expected to contribute each year and indexing student aid to inflation, were announced by the Ministry of Training, Colleges and Universities on Sept. 1.
Previously, students were issued the full amount of financial assistance they qualified for, without the option of taking a smaller amount of the combined grant and loan. This year, students have the option of accepting only the grant portion of the funds (which does not need to be repaid).
Mohammad noted that this option is not available to students who have already received their OSAP funds for this school year.
Next school year, students will likely have the option of accepting only a portion of the loan component. “Previously it was all or nothing; you either take the whole loan and the whole grant or you don’t take anything,” Mohammad explained.
“The direction is towards allowing students more choices, and to have more control over their financial situation,” he added.
Students will also no longer have their aid amounts reduced based on vehicle ownership. Previously, a vehicle counted as a financial asset and meant that students were not eligible for the maximum amount of funding, noted Mohammad.
The Government of Ontario has also launched a new program to help OSAP borrowers who have defaulted to bring their loans back into good standing.
The Ontario Student Loan default rate for GBC students in 2013 (the most recently reported data) was 11.3 per cent, according to a report released by GBC.
