Published on January 25th, 2011 | by jdjurkic

OSAP changes ease up on applications

You may not have heard about it but the Ontario government has made several tweaks to its Ontario Student Assistance Program, better known as OSAP.

It quietly announced this week that OSAP applications will now be available in February, three months earlier than before. This could give students a chance to figure out their budget and expenses for the next school year, especially incoming first-years who are in the process of applying to and receiving acceptances from universities. Other changes include increasing the amount a student can earn working part-time before it affects their OSAP from $50 to $103 each week. That’s good news. Students in Ontario currently pay the highest tuition fees in Canada, according to the Canadian Federation of Students-Ontario. The government is also capping the amount of debt a student can accrue during one school year to $7,300.

So what does all this mean? Well, you still have to pay high tuition fees. That won’t be changing anytime soon, with Ontario students paying an average of $6,307 each year. But here’s hoping this can offer some temporary relief to all OSAP-users out there.