Ontario’s latest post-secondary reforms are a definitive statement about how the Province regards the value of higher education.
On February 12, the government announced $6.4 billion in new institutional funding over four years, funding 70,000 new “in-demand” seats and stabilizing small, rural, northern, French-language, and Indigenous institutions. They also lifted the tuition freeze, which was in place since 2019, allowing increases of up to 2 percent annually for three years. At BBOT, we welcome these initial steps after two years of advocacy urging the Province to provide a lifeline to our postsecondary members facing frozen tuition, stalled corridor funding, and reduced study permit allocations.
But, for me, the most shocking part of the announcement was the change to OSAP.
Under Kathleen Wynne in 2016, the Province redesigned OSAP to consolidate tax credits into a single non-repayable grant, with families earning up to $175,000 eligible for them. Roughly 92 percent of funding was non-repayable, and many low-income students saw tuition fully covered. Loans also came with a six-month interest-free grace period. By 2018, about 440,000 students received OSAP, half of whom had tuition entirely covered. The philosophy was clear: student aid was an investment in equity, human capital, and long-term growth.
Under Doug Ford, that philosophy has been negated. OSAP is no longer primarily an equity tool; it is treated as a cost centre to be contained. He lowered eligibility thresholds, reduced grants, eliminated the interest-free grace period. Now, grants make up a maximum of 25 percent of aid, down from 85 percent, with at least 75 percent in loans. The government frames this as restoring fiscal sustainability to a sector that has seen tremendous cost bloat.
The economic effects of reducing education access
This matters because higher education is not just a private benefit. It is a public investment.
Students who attend post-secondary generate dramatically higher lifetime earnings. Research estimates tens of billions in additional annual earnings tied to college and university attainment. Those earnings translate into higher tax revenues, stronger local economies, and lower public expenditures on health and justice.
At the same time, Canada faces a productivity paradox. We are one of the most educated countries in the OECD, yet productivity growth has stalled. Part of the problem is skills mismatch and weak commercialization of research. Business R&D investment lags global peers. Institutions face revenue crunches and high fixed costs, limiting their ability to adapt quickly.
The answer to that paradox is not restricting access, as that will only worsen our productivity. It involves a policy of alignment. We need more work-integrated learning, stronger industry partnerships, and institutional differentiation, where colleges and universities specialize in different areas. Canada Summer Jobs is a federal program that prioritizes hiring young people, acknowledging that early employment is critical for future success. Perhaps the Province might benefit from similar placement funding.
When grants are cut and debts are placed on students, participation risks decline — especially for middle-income families who do not qualify as “poor” but still struggle with tuition, housing, and inflation. The cost-of-living crisis affects many across the earning spectrum.
The basket weaving comment
The Premier remarked that students should pursue job-relevant fields instead of “basket weaving,” a term historically used to mock the bird courses some American college athletes take. It is hard not to interpret the remark as a dig at the Arts and Humanities. Yet, even looking at the government’s own priorities, from skilled trades to the Skills Development Fund, it is unclear if job creation is the goal of the government at all.
Still, the broader attitude is myopic and outdated. Just a few years ago, we considered coding to be one of the most demanded skills. Now, AI is quickly pushing much of it into obsolescence, disrupting junior-level software development. Technologists themselves argue that in an AI-driven economy, human-centred design, ethics, and management matter more than ever. Workers can learn technical skills on the job, but they must bring the judgment, critical thinking, and philosophical reasoning needed to deploy powerful technologies responsibly.
The political and civic effects
But also, more pressingly, education is foundational to democratic life.
In 2022, I wrote a piece for Policy Options outlining the democratic implications of pandemic school closures and the learning loss which ensued. Public schools are not just sites of academic instruction; they are incubators of citizenship. They build critical thinking, empathy, communication skills, and exposure to diverse viewpoints. Learning loss has been linked not only to lower lifetime earnings but also to weaker civic engagement/higher polarization. Research consistently shows that higher income and employment correlate with higher voter participation.
Reducing financial accessibility to higher education has generational implications in this regard, too. Postsecondary institutions allow for scholastic refinement, to be sure, but they also serve to develop culture and incubate politics. Debt burdens shape life choices, whether to pursue further education, start a business, buy a home, or engage in public life.
The long-term risk is not simply economic underperformance. It is civic erosion.
Education is not a cost centre, it is an investment.
Institutional stability and student affordability are not opposing objectives; they are mutually reinforcing pillars of a serious education strategy. A sustainable framework must secure the financial health of colleges and universities while ensuring that students are not priced-out or debt burdened.
We will not solve productivity challenges by narrowing access, but by better aligning education with innovation, commercialization, and real labour market demand.
We should also be clear that education policy is democracy policy. When access contracts, opportunity contracts, and with it, economic mobility and civic participation.
In Ontario, the pattern is becoming hard to ignore. Between tighter student aid, repeated provincial takeovers of school boards, and the threat of eliminating trustees that constrains local flexibility, the Provincial government increasingly treats education as an endless cost to be contained rather than a generational investment to be strengthened.
The real question is not whether we can afford to fund education; it is whether we can afford not to. In the Brampton businesses community, I know there are parents who are struggling to afford to send their children through school along with the cost of everything else. If this is you or you are concerned about what these shifts mean for the next generation of talent, contact me at vsingh@bramptonbot.com.