increase tuition by up to two per cent per year for the next three years<\/a>, ending a freeze that had been in effect since 2019.<\/p>\nAt the same time, the government said that it would decrease the proportion of grants offered through OSAP from roughly 85 per cent of total funding to a maximum of 25 per cent starting in the fall.<\/p>\n
\u201cFolks, it was in the red, it was just not sustainable and the sector was telling me it was not sustainable,\u201d Ford said at Queen\u2019s Park on Tuesday. \u201cIf we continued going we would be closing down colleges and universities.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ford said on Tuesday that he has received \u201cthousands\u201d of calls from students upset about the changes to OSAP and the lifting of the tuition freeze. <\/p>\n
He said that for years he resisted lifting the freeze despite \u201cmassive pressure from the heads of the colleges and universities\u201d but ultimately had to do something to support colleges and universities that have struggled financially amid new limits on international student enrollment. <\/p>\n
He said that his message to students in the wake of the changes is that \u201cthey have to invest in their future and in in-demand jobs.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of the students, you know, you are picking basket-weaving courses and there are not too many baskets being sold out there. Go into healthcare, go into trades, go into jobs of the future, focus on STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Math)\u201d Ford said. \u201cThose are where the jobs are.\u201d<\/p>\n
$6.4B in additional funding<\/p>\n
As part of the changes announced last week, the Ford government also committed an additional $6.4 billion in funding for the post-secondary sector over the next four years. <\/p>\n
The changes, however, have been widely criticized by student groups and opposition leaders. <\/p>\n
Last week, Canadian Federation of Students\u2019 Ontario branch Government Relations and Policy Co-ordinator Kayla Weiler told The Canadian Press that the changes to OSAP, in particular, will be \u201ca huge disadvantage for students\u201d and will likely result in the next cohort of students graduating \u201cwith more student debt than ever before.\u201d <\/p>\n
Meanwhile, NDP critic Peggy Sattler said that \u201cinstead of fixing the affordability crisis\u201d the government is telling students \u201cto take on more debt and hope things somehow work out.\u201d<\/p>\n
For his part, Ford said that he hopes that by contributing more postsecondary students will be \u201cmore accountable.\u201d<\/p>\n
Ford also appeared to suggest that some students are taking advantage of OSAP, telling reporters he has heard \u201cnightmare stories\u201d about \u201ckids going out there and buying fancy watches and cologne.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf they have investments into their education and their parents have investments in their education they are going to focus on it and they aren\u2019t going to drop out and they aren\u2019t going to be looking for a different job after going to school for one type of sector and finding out that there is no more jobs,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Ontario Premier Doug Ford addresses the backlash over the province\u2019s decision to hike tuition fees and make cuts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":481715,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[712,43,44,41,39,42,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-481714","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-apple-news","9":"tag-headlines","10":"tag-news","11":"tag-top-news","12":"tag-top-stories","13":"tag-topnews","14":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481714","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=481714"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/481714\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/481715"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=481714"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=481714"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=481714"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}