Career college students worry about impact of OSAP pause, extended to 2027

TORONTO — A provincewide pause on student financial assistance payments to Ontario career colleges will last for months, the government has confirmed, leaving some students worried it will prevent them from graduating.

Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn announced late Tuesday afternoon that the pause won’t be lifted until the government establishes a new process for approving private post-secondary institutions under the Ontario Student Assistance Program.

That work isn’t expected to be finished until the new year, he said, and the government is also still working to secure third-party loans for students through banks.

Quinn enacted the pause after he said preliminary findings from an audit into OSAP usage at career colleges highlighted serious concerns.

But many students say they feel unfairly penalized for the allegedly suspicious activity of others. They and industry association Career Colleges Ontario are calling for more of a targeted approach to weed out any bad actors.

“We are disappointed that yesterday’s announcement means students and compliant institutions will continue to face uncertainty until at least the new year,” Career Colleges Ontario wrote in a statement Wednesday.

“While we support stronger oversight measures and proposed legislation to protect OSAP’s integrity, many students are struggling to pay rent, support their families, and continue their studies.”

The promise of a resolution months away is cold comfort for students like Jennifer Koster, who is in the law clerk program at Trillium College and was expecting to finish school in February.

“The only way that I could describe it was a bomb being dropped on me,” she said of the news earlier this month that OSAP payments were paused for all career college students.

Further complicating matters for Trillium College students is a move late last week by the school to suspend classes at its various campuses due to the uncertainty around OSAP. Several students say the college wanted to put them on payment plans with monthly instalments around $1,500, but they couldn’t afford that without OSAP.

Koster is on the Ontario Disability Support Program and she would have to put almost her whole monthly disability payment toward tuition at that payment level, she said.

“I went to college to better my future, and now … it feels like it’s leaving my entire future in jeopardy,” Koster said.

Scott Daley, a massage therapy student at the CTS Canadian Career College campus in Barrie, said the OSAP pause and its extension into the new year is a major stressor.

“We’ve had times where we weren’t sure where we were going to be able to get groceries,” Daley said.

“We have to kind of rob Peter just to pay Paul. It’s kind of over the top right now. … I’ve lost sleep. I’m not eating properly right now because of it.”

Deanna Hutten, a second-year master’s student in McMaster Divinity College’s counselling and spiritual care program, is dropping down to a partial course load and working more hours so she can afford to stay in school.

“This is (because of) something that I didn’t do,” she said. “It’s something that the government mismanaged.”

Quinn said in his statement Tuesday that he knows the pause is affecting students.

“While necessary to protect the integrity of OSAP and to protect Ontario taxpayers from abuse, we understand the impact that this work is having on students and families across the province,” he wrote.

“This impact is not lost on us as we work to restore integrity to the system and provide students with greater certainty and stability as quickly as possible.”

Marina Whitehead, a Trillium College student in the community developmental service worker program, said she too is supposed to finish in February and now doesn’t know if that will happen.

She is frustrated both with the government’s sweeping OSAP pause and Trillium’s handling of it.

“The government, they get to finish their day at five, go home to their families, and not have to worry about where their next meal is going to come from,” Whitehead said.

“They’re not going to have to worry about an eviction notice in the mail. They’re not going to have to worry about putting in so much hard work just to throw it down the drain. … I would love for them to walk a mile in us, the students’ shoes.”

Students at various colleges and campuses are organizing protests and rallies against the OSAP pause, including Saturday in St. Catharines and Tuesday in North Bay.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 21, 2026.

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press