Students protest cuts to amount of OSAP grants they can receive  

March 4,2026

The Canadian Press

Hundreds of Ontario post-secondary students and supporters are taking to the lawn of the legislature today to protest cuts to financial assistance grants.

Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn announced last month that the province is giving the post-secondary institutions a long-sought funding boost, while also lifting a seven-year tuition fee freeze and drastically scaling back Ontario Student Assistance Program grants in favour of loans.  

Canadian Federation of Students’ Ontario chairperson Cyrielle Ngeleka says it will leave many students with high debt loads at a time when cost of living is rising, and education should be a pathway out of precarity, not into it.  

The current proportion of OSAP funding is about 85 per cent grants to 15 per cent loans, but starting this fall students will receive a maximum of 25 per cent of their OSAP funding as grants.  

Adam Picardo, an urban and regional planning student at Toronto Metropolitan University, says young people should not have to start their professional lives saddled with a mortgage-sized debt.  

The government says OSAP funding was becoming “unsustainable,” with spending on grants alone at $1.7 billion last year, a 143 per cent increase since 2020.  

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 4, 2026.