Ontario career colleges receive $385M in OSAP grants amid suspicious activity warnings

New data reveals that just seven career colleges in Ontario received approximately $385 million in provincial grants through the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) during the 2024-25 period. This amount is equivalent to the total provincial grants provided to all publicly funded colleges in the province that year and exceeds the total amount given to all Ontario university students.

Documents indicate that Career Colleges Ontario, the industry's advocacy group, began warning the provincial government about “indicators consistent with suspicious activity” regarding OSAP applications as early as January 2023. The association reportedly held multiple meetings with the Ministry of Colleges and Universities to discuss these concerns and requested that certain matters be referred to the police.

The surge in funding is concentrated within a small subset of the approximately 170 career colleges in the province, with some institutions seeing student numbers rise from fewer than 100 to several thousand in just a few years. In response to what it termed “unsustainable” costs, the government of Premier Doug Ford recently cut student assistance grants for university and public college students and barred students at certain career colleges from accessing OSAP grants.