Ceilie Atkinson, a third-year cultural science major at Trent University, is currently receiving a student loan to help her pay for school.
Like many students, she’s worried about paying it back. As of this fall, the grant portion of the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) will be reduced to 25 per cent where previously students could get up to 85 per cent in grants.
“I think it’s going to be a lot harder for students to be able to pay that back,” she said.
Newfoundland and Labrador is using a different approach to help students, one that interests Atkinson.
In 2002, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador started the Debt Reduction Program where students could have their loans turned into non-repayable grants.
The program has some tight constraints though. Students must be from Newfoundland and Labrador, complete their degree in a timely manner and work in the province post-graduation.
“It’s definitely better than some other alternatives. Having to just pay back any loan is definitely a barrier, especially young people trying to get into the workforce [who are] burdened with a lot of debt,” says Nathan Gillingham, the executive director of external affairs at Memorial University’s student union in St. John’s, Nfld.
Nursing students in Ontario can have some loan forgiveness if they work in rural areas post-graduation, according to the Government of Canada, but there’s no similar provincial model available to all students.
Atkinson says a lot of her friends are planning on furthering their education post-graduation to delay repaying their loans. With the formula change, she says she is debating her future career based on being able to pay back the amount she borrowed.
“I do feel a lot of like pressure to be able to go into something that could help me pay it back a lot sooner because interest just keeps occurring,” said Atkinson. “The longer it takes you to pay it back, the longer it’s just going to keep going.”
The Newfoundland and Labrador government also lifted its 22-year tuition freeze five years ago.
“Newfoundland had the cheapest education or one of the cheapest educations you can get in all of Canada,” said Gillingham. “And that was that was a great initiative by the government. But recently, tuition has been increasing.”
Once the freeze was lifted, Memorial doubled its tuition from approximately $3,000 to $6,000, depending on the program, according to the university.
Meanwhile, the Ontario government also lifted its tuition freeze, starting with a two per cent increase this year.
“When you break down the numbers, two per cent is only a couple hundred dollars, but it sounds like a small amount for some students,” said Akinson. “It’s quite a lot and it’s really making students worry that they’re not going to be able to afford going back in the fall.”
Atkinson says it would be beneficial to students in Ontario to have a similar loan forgiveness program as Newfoundland and Labrador, even with tight constraints around eligibility.