National Ballet School, divinity college students among those affected by OSAP pause

A recent pause on financial assistance payments to private post-secondary institutions in Ontario is affecting divinity schools, Canada’s National Ballet School and many others, with students feeling unfairly swept up in what they describe as a trawling net-like policy.

Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn announced last week that the province had tasked KPMG with auditing Ontario Student Assistance Program usage at career colleges, and that preliminary findings were of such concern that he referred the matter to the Ontario Provincial Police.

While the audit is ongoing, Quinn said, OSAP payments to private post-secondary institutions would be paused. Quinn said he is “working on” securing low-interest loans for affected students at financial institutions, but he has not indicated a timeline.

Many career college students have said they are worried about the pause, with no clear end in sight and with some students relying on that financial aid to cover not just tuition but living expenses while they study.

The broad nature of the pause affects all private post-secondary institutions, including private universities, chiropractic and naturopathic medicine colleges, and performing arts schools such as Canada’s National Ballet School.

Alessia Di Palma is in her last year of the ballet school’s five-year joint teacher training program with York University, and said she does not want to have to leave school when she is so close to finishing, but at the moment doesn’t know how she will pay her rent, even though she works two jobs while going to school.

“I’m heartbroken,” she said. “My heart sunk when I found out because it’s unfair that I’ve had this funding for four years and then the fifth year it’s just gone now because of something that didn’t even have anything to do with me.”

Initial concerns stemmed from activity at a few schools, Quinn’s office says, but evidence of “systemic issues” has come up in recent weeks.

“At this time, we do not have assurances from the audit team that the issues are not more widespread, leaving us with no choice but to pause OSAP payments to all private institutions to protect taxpayer dollars and hold bad actors accountable,” spokesperson Bianca Giacoboni wrote in a statement.

“We understand this is creating uncertainty for students and are working quickly to develop options for low-interest, third-party loans facilitated by financial institutions to help students through this period of transition.”

At the ballet school, programs are mostly at the secondary level, but it does have a post-secondary teacher training program that is affected by the OSAP pause. About half of those students rely on that aid to pay their tuition, said executive director John Dalrymple.

The government has chosen the bluntest and most harmful way of dealing with the root of the problem, he said, and it is especially disappointing that Quinn enacted the pause before securing those third-party loans.

“The fact that now all of these students who are working multiple jobs to make ends meet, who are at the very beginning of their career, are now left holding the bag to figure out how to finance something that the government had already assured them they qualified for and they were going to receive, I think is unconscionable,” he said.

Theological schools like McMaster Divinity College, affiliated with McMaster University, are also affected by the pause. Ambrose Thomson, the school’s registrar and director of student services, said students are beside themselves.

About 10 per cent of the non-profit institution’s revenue is dependent on OSAP-paid tuition, he said. McMaster Divinity College is relatively well-positioned to weather that storm, Ambrose said, but not all schools are so lucky.

“The impression I get is that the government knows full well what the impacts are,” he said.

“They’re not stupid. All I can assume is that at the highest levels where these decisions were made, they’re actually willing to allow career colleges and other schools to shut their doors … I think they’re trying to look like they’re doing something in the face of 300-whatever million dollars that they were not smart enough to pay attention to.”

Data obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom-of-information request showed large increases in OSAP usage at a relatively small number of career colleges from 2020-21 to 2024-25.

The seven career colleges that had the highest OSAP usage in 2024-25 received $385 million in provincial grants – the same amount that went to students at all of Ontario’s publicly funded colleges that year.

Career Colleges Ontario has raised concerns since 2023 about what it calls potentially “suspicious activity” with OSAP usage at a few schools.

Deanna Hutten, a second-year master’s student in McMaster Divinity College’s counselling and spiritual care program, is borrowing money from family and working 10 more hours per week at her marketing job to make up for her OSAP being on hold.

The single mother to a one-year-old daughter who hopes to work in hospital chaplaincy said it is frustrating to be lumped in with some suspected bad actors.

“It definitely feels very unfair,” she said.

“They had known about this since 2023 that there were people kind of (allegedly) fudging the system, and now we as private career – not even career colleges, but private institutions – are kind of being swept into that field or that group of people, even though we’re not a part of that.”

At the Toronto Film School, there is also “tremendous uncertainty and anxiety” for many students, said president Andrew Barnsley. He is calling for prompt reinstatement of OSAP for eligible students, or at least a clear, expedited timeline to resolve the pause.

“The OSAP pause is deeply disappointing, and our greatest concern is the impact on our students who made significant commitments to their education with the reasonable expectation that financial assistance would be available,” he wrote in a statement.

“Many students have rearranged their lives, reduced or left employment, made child-care arrangements and, in some cases, relocated to Toronto in order to pursue their studies. They need to know whether they can meet their financial obligations, including life essentials like rent or food, and continue the programs in which they have already invested time, money and effort.”