One year ago, Caitlin Chee made a tough decision that would require major lifestyle changes. The Toronto Rape Crisis Centre counsellor and board member decided to go back to school at age 29 to pursue a second bachelor’s degree in social work, a field more relevant to the work than Chee’s environmental science degree. Chee dropped to part-time work hours while taking three courses at a time online at Dalhousie University in Nova Scotia. But with changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) now in place for this fall semester, the amount of assistance Chee received dropped significantly, and the 30-year-old has had to switch to working full time, dropping down to just one course per term. Under the new rules, grants are reduced so students have to rely more on loans that must be repaid with interest, and some grants students received in the past are being retroactively converted into loans. The government says it is increasing the share of funding to lower-income families, but critics say the pot of funding overall has not increased, and so many students are receiving less money than expected. Tuition fees are also being cut by 10 per cent.For Chee, tuition is covered by OSAP this term but just $300 is left over for textbooks and living expenses, a gap part-time work can’t fill. Last year there was still $1,100 left after tuition.“Before, I was planning on graduating at the end of next year,” Chee said. “Now, I honestly don’t know when I’m ever going to finish. It’s going to take years.”Because Chee’s school is out-of-province and because it’s a second-item program (requiring a few years in university already), the new rules also say at least half of the OSAP money must be loans that have to be repaid with interest, rather than grants the student gets to keep.“It was a very hard decision, knowing how much I was going to have to change my life, that I was going to have to liv ...
|
