The Debt Always Belongs to the Student

When Ontario announced sweeping changes to the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) in February 2026, much of the attention focused on budgets. Under the new framework, students can receive a maximum of 25% of their provincial OSAP assistance as grants and at least 75% as loans, a significant shift from the previous grant-heavy model. At the same time, Ontario lifted its long-standing tuition freeze and announced $6.4 billion in new funding for the post-secondary sector.

The government's argument was straightforward: the system needed to become financially sustainable.

Months later, however, allegations surrounding Academy of Learning's OSAP-funded operations have prompted a broader question: if students are being asked to assume more financial risk, what assurances do they have that the education system itself is being held to the same standard?

The issue is not whether the OSAP reforms were caused by this scandal. They were not. The policy changes were announced months before the allegations surfaced.

The issue is trust.

For decades, Canadians were encouraged to view post-secondary education as the surest pathway to economic security. If tuition seemed expensive, governments offered loans. If borrowing felt uncomfortable, students were assured that education was an investment that would pay dividends throughout their lives.

That promise has become harder to defend.

A student loan is unlike most forms of debt. A car eventually deteriorates. A home can appreciate in value. Education offers no guaranteed return. Graduates leave school carrying obligations that may follow them for years or even decades, regardless of whether the labour market delivers the opportunities they were promised.

The true cost of student debt is not measured solely in monthly payments.
It is measured in delayed home ownership.
It is measured in postponed retirement savings.
It is measured in businesses never started, families formed later, and opportunities declined because financial flexibility no longer exists.

When governments shift assistance from grants toward loans, they are not merely changing funding formulas. They are transferring risk from the public sector to individual students. That transfer of risk would be easier to justify if confidence in the broader system remained strong. Yet recent allegations involving Academy of Learning have raised concerns about oversight, accountability, and whether public funds are always being used in ways that genuinely advance student success. Whatever the ultimate outcome of investigations and legal proceedings, the controversy has intensified public scrutiny of a system that increasingly asks students to shoulder the financial burden.

The larger concern extends beyond one institution.

Across Canada, colleges and universities face mounting financial pressures. Reduced international student enrolment, years of frozen tuition, and rising operating costs have left many institutions searching for alternative sources of revenue. Ontario's recent funding package was itself a response to concerns about the sector's financial sustainability. As public funding becomes constrained, universities increasingly rely on corporate partnerships, industry sponsorships, and private sources of research funding.

These relationships often produce valuable innovation. However, they also raise legitimate questions about research priorities, intellectual property, and who ultimately benefits from discoveries developed within publicly supported institutions. Huawei's past research partnerships with several Canadian universities illustrate the dilemma. Over the years, concerns were raised by security experts and policymakers regarding research security and the potential strategic implications of foreign-funded research collaborations. These concerns eventually led several major Canadian universities to halt new Huawei research agreements or wind down existing partnerships.

The debate is not merely about one company.
It is about the direction of Canadian higher education.
Who is the system designed to serve?
Students?
Taxpayers?
Employers?
Corporations?
Governments?

Increasingly, it appears that each stakeholder carries a different portion of the benefits and risks. Students carry debt. Taxpayers fund programs. Institutions collect tuition and public funding. Corporate partners gain access to talent and research expertise. Yet when problems emerge—whether financial, administrative, or regulatory—the consequences often fall most heavily on students.

The debt always belongs to them.

This is why the conversation sparked by the OSAP reforms should not be reduced to accounting exercises. Fiscal sustainability matters. Public resources are limited. Governments must make difficult choices. But sustainability should not be measured only by balancing institutional budgets.

A truly sustainable education system must also be accountable, transparent, and capable of delivering meaningful value to those it serves.

Students who borrow tens of thousands of dollars to pursue an education deserve confidence that institutions are operating with integrity. Taxpayers deserve confidence that public funds are being protected from misuse. Researchers deserve confidence that Canadian innovation serves Canadian interests. And Canadians deserve confidence that higher education remains a pathway to opportunity rather than a mechanism for transferring ever-greater amounts of risk onto the next generation.

The Academy of Learning controversy and Ontario's OSAP reforms are, at first glance, unrelated stories. In reality, they expose the same question. If students are being asked to carry more debt, who is carrying the responsibility?

Until Canada answers that question, confidence in higher education will continue to erode—not because students no longer believe in education, but because they increasingly wonder whether the system believes in them.