The government was “asleep at the switch” when it came to investigating a handful of private colleges over allegations of abusing the OSAP system, says interim Liberal leader John Fraser.
“For nearly three years, the Ford government received warnings about potential OSAP fraud at private career colleges, yet hundreds of millions of dollars continued flowing through the system,” added MPP Tyler Watt, his party’s post-secondary critic, who spoke at Queen’s Park on Wednesday alongside Fraser.
But once exposed, Watt added, “they cut off OSAP to every student at private career colleges as a reactionary attempt to hide their mess.”
Last week, Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn announced that private career colleges would be temporarily barred from accessing student aid payments as a result of “increased complaints related to the growing volume of OSAP claims.” He said the government took action following an independent audit, in which “serious concerns about the integrity of the OSAP system” in the private college sector were identified.
The ministry says it began looking into OSAP irregularities in 2025, after the rise in complaints in late 2024.
Quinn also said the province has referred potential “criminal allegations” to the Ontario Provincial Police, including alleged co-ownership of private colleges and immigration firms, and clusters of OSAP applications from the same locations.
In a statement to the Star on Wednesday, the OPP said it “can confirm that it has received a referral from the Ontario government regarding this matter. The information provided through the referral is currently under review.”
The government’s move, however, has frozen funds for students as well, and Quinn said the government is working with financial institutions to provide low-interest loans. No timeline has been given.
While Quinn has said he understands “the impact this OSAP pause has on hard-working students who attend private institutions,” Watt said it has left “thousands of students unable to pay rent, buy groceries or pay their bills.”
OSAP eligibility will be tightened in the coming days, and a new process will be put in place for private colleges to re-apply. Those that are online only will be permanently banned given the number of concerns, Quinn has also said.
Watt said Career Colleges Ontario, which represents 280-plus private colleges, raised concerns in 2023, 2024 and 2025, and said that “influencers and third-party agents were openly advertising OSAP as free money online,” which the government should have been aware of.
Bianca Giacoboni, Quinn’s press secretary, said in a statement that “institutions are not permitted to use OSAP approval as a marketing tool or identify the availability of OSAP assistance, directly or indirectly, in any advertising or promotion of the institution.”
This “includes websites, newspapers, magazines, radio, television, the internet, or any other means used in the recruitment of students and prospective students by or on behalf of the institution. Third-party recruiters are also not permitted to apply for OSAP on behalf of any student.”
Last spring, the government announced changes overall to OSAP, saying that starting this fall it would provide up to 25 per cent in grants and loans 75 per cent — almost a reversal of the 85 per cent in nonrepayable grants and 15 per cent loans introduced by the former Liberal government.
The province blamed ballooning student aid costs, especially among private career colleges, and argued the new grant-loan ratio was more in line with other provinces.
However, Allison Jones of The Canadian Press, who has covered the issue extensively, has reported that about 14,800 students at three franchise locations of one private career college alone received more than $219 million in OSAP grants in 2024-25; while across Ontario, all publicly funded colleges recorded $385 million in OSAP grants over that same time period.
The Liberals are calling on the government to restore OSAP to students at private colleges that are not under investigation.
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