Fix the Bad Actors, Not the Students: Better Options Than Cutting Off Career Colleges
Queen's Park had a real problem to solve. The way it has chosen to solve it risks punishing the students who did nothing wrong.
What the province did
In February, Ontario announced it would flip OSAP from mostly grants to mostly loans: starting this fall, grants can be at most 25% of a student's aid, down from up to 85%. Students at private career colleges lose grants altogether and can only borrow. In July, the ministry went further and cut off OSAP loans entirely for students at five career college locations: four Academy of Learning franchises and Citi College of Canadian Careers.
The government's stated reason was that OSAP had become unsustainable. The data shows where the growth actually was.
Provincial OSAP grants, 2024-25, from freedom-of-information data reported by The Canadian Press. The three Academy of Learning sites are part of the seven.
Seven career colleges received as much in grants as every publicly funded college in Ontario combined. Nearly all the recent growth in OSAP grants was at career colleges. Career Colleges Ontario, the sector's own association, flagged ten locations to the ministry in January 2025 because their OSAP applications had jumped 500 to 600 per cent in two years while the rest of the sector was flat. The ministry told five schools on May 1, 2026 they were out. That is roughly 16 months after the warning.
Allegations, not findings. Inspection reports filed in court say third parties completed coursework, sometimes entire courses in a day, at three Academy of Learning locations (Toronto, Brampton and a North York branch). The schools deny most of the allegations and are challenging the decision in court. None of it has been proven.
Is anyone in Rideau-Rockcliffe affected?
Not directly by the five cutoffs, as far as I can tell. The three locations named in court records are in Toronto, Brampton and North York, and I could not find any of the five identified as being in Ottawa. I could not confirm locations for the other two, so a student who enrolled at one of them from here would be affected through online programs.
The wider changes reach Ward 13 much more broadly:
- Public college students. Algonquin and La Cité students, including those at La Cité's Aviation Parkway campus, face the 25% grant cap this fall. Students pay for food, rent and transit out of those grants.
- University students. The same cap applies to Carleton and uOttawa students who live here, and the uOttawa student union has called it devastating for students who depend on grants.
- Anyone at a career college. Any Ottawa resident in a private career college program is now loan-only, whether or not their school is one of the five.
A councillor does not set OSAP policy. That belongs to Queen's Park. But the debt, the housing pressure and the dropouts all land in our neighbourhoods, and a ward representative can at least ask the right questions and push the province to answer them.
The problem with the blunt tool
Cutting grants for every career college student treats a small cluster of suspect schools as if they were the whole sector. Cutting an institution off mid-year leaves enrolled students with a program they cannot pay for and a school that may close. The students in the middle did what they were told: they enrolled in a registered program and applied for the aid the province offered.
There is also an oversight question. A warning arrived in January 2025 and the response came well over a year later, after hundreds of millions of dollars had gone out. A ban that arrives late and lands on everyone is not a substitute for monitoring that works.
Better options
| Approach | What it does | Who it protects |
|---|---|---|
| Outcome-based eligibility | Tie OSAP access to published graduation, default and employment results, and to tuition compared with the public-college equivalent. | Students at good schools; taxpayers |
| Early-warning triggers | Flag any school whose OSAP volume jumps sharply and audit it automatically, including its recruiting agents and attendance records. | Everyone, before the money goes out |
| Participation verification | Require proof of active participation in asynchronous programs before disbursement, which is the exact gap the inspectors describe. | Honest online students and the system |
| Teach-out and student protection | If a school loses eligibility, guarantee credit transfer to a public college and relief or refunds for students who cannot finish. | Enrolled students |
| Tuition ceiling on OSAP | Cap eligible tuition at the public-college equivalent for the same credential. | Taxpayers and borrowers |
| Targeted support in shortage fields | Keep grants for vetted programs in areas like personal support work, paramedic training, trades and IT, with a sunset as public seats expand. | Students and local employers |
| Grandfathering and notice | Let current students keep their aid terms to completion and give a year of notice before rules change. | Students who planned around the old rules |
The province has already promised 70,000 more seats in in-demand public programs. These options could run alongside that expansion, so students would have somewhere to go.
What I would measure
The province tells us how many dollars went out. It should also tell us who finished, who defaulted, who found work, and which schools produced which results. That is the same test I apply everywhere else at City Hall: outputs are not outcomes. A cheque issued is an output. A graduate with a job is an outcome.
The aim should be to remove the schools gaming the system and keep the ones doing honest work for newcomers and career-changers. Cutting everyone's grants and a few schools' loans does the first only crudely and the second not at all.
Ottawa career colleges: which of the province's registered career colleges operate in the city, and what share of their enrolment is OSAP-funded? The province's public registry is the place to start.Our MPPs: have they raised the grant cut, the late response to the 2025 warning, or the treatment of enrolled students with the minister? A written question gets an on-record answer, or an on-record silence.
Sources
Ontario announcement of OSAP changes and funding: CTV/Canadian Press, Feb. 12, 2026.
Five schools cut off from loans: CBC News and CP24.
$385M grants to seven career colleges: CTV/Canadian Press, Aug. 2026.
Inspection reports, court challenge and the January 2025 warning: CBC News, Oct. 2026; TorontoToday.
Student reaction: CTV/Canadian Press, Feb. 16, 2026.
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