Ontario said this week it will provide postsecondary schools an additional $6.4-billion in operating funds over the next four years.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
A multibillion-dollar funding boost for Ontario postsecondary schools announced this week will send an important signal to the province’s employers and its international trade partners, according to Nolan Quinn, Minister of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security.
Ontario enjoys an enviable position with a highly educated work force that attracts international investors, Mr. Quinn said in an interview Friday. But the talent pipeline needs to be built on a secure foundation, he added.
“We need stability for the sector. You know it’s not just for these students, but for the students behind them,” Mr. Quinn said. “This allows the colleges and universities to be able to have a very clear path forward, and they know this new funding model will be able to support them.”
On Thursday, Mr. Quinn announced a major injection of operational funding for universities and colleges that was greeted with relief by many in the sector. Ontario’s postsecondary schools have been hard hit by the federal government’s changes to international student policy.
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The province said it will provide an additional $6.4-billion in operating funds over the next four years, an increase that was hailed as a “landmark” and a “game changer” by the associations that represent about 20 publicly supported universities and 24 publicly supported colleges in Ontario.
The Council of Ontario Universities and Colleges Ontario collectively estimate they’ve lost more than $3-billion in revenue since the move to cut international study permits in 2024. But they’ve also been hit by the provincial government’s seven-year freeze on domestic tuition fees. And for years Ontario has trailed well below the national average on per-student funding from the province.
On Thursday, Mr. Quinn also ended the freeze on tuition fees, which means universities and colleges can raise prices by up to 2 per cent a year for the next three years.
He said the tuition increase, which followed a 10-per-cent tuition price cut in 2019, will be lower than increases in other parts of the country.
“It’s a very modest 2-per-cent increase,” Mr. Quinn said, adding it will cost students in college about 18 cents a day and in university about 47 cents a day.
Rob Kristofferson, president of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, which describes itself as the voice of more than 18,000 professionals, said the announcement underlines “how far behind the rest of the country Ontario is when it comes to per-student funding at universities.”
JP Hornick, president of the Ontario Public Service Employees Union, which represents college faculty, said the new funding is welcome, but comes only after the system had been pushed “to the brink of collapse.”
“It’s hard to recover from two decades of underfunding all at once, but that’s where we need to be going if we want a stable, G7 leading sector,” Hornick said.
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The Canadian Federation of Students also welcomed the increase in operational funding, but said other aspects of the policy changes fall short.
“This announcement shows that the government is willing to open their purse-strings and fund Ontario’s post-secondary education system when they want to. However, the tuition fee increase and the change in OSAP allocation framework prioritizing more student loans will lead to even more student debt,” Cyrielle Ngeleka, chair for the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario, said in a statement.
Under the new OSAP framework, a maximum of 25 per cent of the financial support could be a non-repayable grant, while the rest would be a loan. Under the previous system, as much as 85 per cent of financial support could be in the form of a grant.
Mr. Quinn said the shift to a greater emphasis on loans puts Ontario in line with other provinces, adding that the government is committed to ensuring that postsecondary education remains accessible.
“The one thing I always really want to highlight to our students is that we have a student access guarantee,” he said. “We want to ensure that access is available to every student, regardless of income.”