Ontario Premier Doug Ford is signalling he will stand firm on his government’s changes to student loans as opposition to a major restructuring of the program grows in the province.

As part of a push to sustain the struggling post-secondary sector, the province will inject new cash into colleges and universities and allow them to raise tuition fees by two per cent a year.

The changes also shifted how OSAP operates, moving away from grants to offer students more loans instead.

The existing proportion of OSAP was about 85 per cent grants to 15 per cent loans, the government said, but starting this fall, students will receive a maximum of 25 per cent of their OSAP funding as grants.

Now, advocates and opponents are pushing the premier to reverse course, accusing him of trying to balance the books on the backs of students.

“Doug Ford has shown that he doesn’t mind a good flip-flop, so we’re going to hand him an opportunity,” Ontario NDP Leader Marit Stiles said.

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“Families that I’m hearing from are furious. Not only is this an attack on students saddling them with massive debt when they least need it … but it is also a hit on our economy.”

The NDP has launched a campaign to “save OSAP,” urging students and families to sign its petition and write to their local MPPs.

“We have been contacted already by thousands of people, thousands of students,” Stiles said. “Even the premier acknowledged he’s getting thousands of calls. No kidding. My phone was lighting up all weekend; I expect every MPP was getting lots of calls.”

Bella Fischer, with the College Student Alliance, said the OSAP changes and hiked tuition fees could put some off college or university by making them pay more for longer.

“They’re putting basically all of the burden onto the students,” she said. “The decisions in life later are going to also be affected because they’re going to have more debt to pay.”

Ford, however, justified the decision at an unrelated event on Wednesday, saying the existing system was “unsustainable” and claiming the government had been “paying for everyone’s education.”

He added, “The most vulnerable are going to be taken care of, that’s clear and simple. It’s going to be 25 per cent — and that puts us in the middle of the pack.”

Ontario Liberal MPP John Fraser said the premier didn’t understand the impact on students.

“He’s out of touch with people’s everyday lives, what families go through to make sure that their kids get an education and are ready for the future,” he said. “They give up a lot.”

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Ontario Premier Doug Ford says he was inundated with calls from students over the weekend, worrying about his government’s decision to raise tuition fees and cut OSAP grants, saying he couldn’t fight against post-secondary leaders any longer.

Last week, the government confirmed it would allow colleges and universities to raise tuition fees by two per cent a year and substantially scale back the grant funding available to students.

At the same time, funding for the sector will increase to roughly $7 billion per year, after thousands of layoffs and hundreds of program cancellations across the post-secondary sector.

“I got a lot of calls from students about OSAP and they were interesting calls, and I returned every one with a standard statement,” Ford told reporters. “It wasn’t hundreds, it was thousands.”

Ford said he had tried to tell students that keeping fees frozen “wasn’t sustainable any longer” and that he had spent years fighting to maintain his freeze.

“I just wish the students knew how hard I fought,” the premier said. “When I first came into office, I knocked the tuition down 10 per cent and under massive pressure from the heads of the colleges and universities, I refused to increase tuition.”

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From September, colleges and universities will be able to increase fees by two per cent annually for the next three years. After that, they will increase by either two per cent or an average of the rate of inflation — whichever is lower.

After fees were frozen by Ford in 2019, colleges and universities increasingly turned to international students to deal with revenue issues, with roughly one-third of total college revenue coming from international students.

When the federal government capped the number of international students at the beginning of 2024, that revenue stream dried up. Colleges, in particular, felt the brunt of it, laying off more than 8,000 staff and closing campuses.

“It’s just not sustainable, and the sector was telling me it’s not sustainable; it would mean closing down colleges and universities,” Ford said. “I think it was accepted by the general public because they’re paying the bills.”

At the same time, the government is also overhauling how student loans and grants work — shifting from offering large grants to an approach which requires students to repay more.

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

Ford said he thought that approach might make students work harder.

“I believe that students will focus and be more accountable if they have investments into their education, if their parents have investments in their education, they’re going to focus on it, they aren’t going to drop out,” he said.

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