Policy paper : Reforming Ontario's student financial assistance system

In order to better serve students and their families: • Reforms to the student financial assistance system must be enacted to reduce financial pressures on families; • Provincial government leaders should lobby the federal government to increase the value of the Canada Learning Bond and ensure more families are benefiting from it; • Ontario should develop its own savings incentive program similar [...] With the intention of broadening eligibility, the provincial government should: • Remove regressive policies that make it difficult for part-time students, students with loan over-awards, and students with specific academic requirements to qualify for OSAP; • Allow students to submit a form of notification in the event that they are going to the province temporarily; • Hold part-time students to t [...] While the ideal solution may be to reduce the upfront costs of higher education—tuition, fees, and materials—reforms to the student financial assistance system offer more realistic and actionable improvements in the short, medium, and long term. [...] To this end, the provincial government should lobby the federal government to improve the reach and increase the value of the Canada Learning Bond. [...] Recommendation: Students should be able to submit a form of notification to the government in the event that they are going to leave their home province for a significant amount of time with the intent of coming back to attend post-secondary education.