Doug Ford Ends Tuition Freeze, Expands Student Debt in Ontario

Doug Ford remains relentless in his fight for privatization.

The Ontario government has announced changes to post-secondary education that, on the surface, may appear measured: the end of a long-standing tuition freeze, new funding for colleges and universities, a restructuring of student financial aid. But when taken together, these decisions continue a neoliberal policy direction that has been unfolding since 2019; one that shifts the cost of higher education away from the public and onto students themselves. One that ultimately gouges intellectual accessibility by making school too expensive to even consider.

What happened exactly?

The most immediate change is the lifting of Ontario’s tuition freeze, which had been in place since 2019. Colleges and universities are now permitted to increase tuition by up to 2% per year. While seemingly modest, the impact is cumulative. After several years of frozen rates, tuition will now rise annually, adding to the overall cost of a diploma over time.

Alongside this, the government has restructured the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP). The key shift is in how aid is delivered. Grants (the portion of funding that does not need to be repaid) are now capped at approximately 25% of a student’s aid package, with the remaining majority provided as loans. And for students attending private career colleges, provincial grants have been removed altogether, leaving them reliant almost entirely on repayable funding. I am someone that highly benefited from grants as a young student. If not for many opportunities public infrastructure offered me in support of my low income situation, I may never have been awarded with the opportunity to educate myself to the level I am so grateful for.

The province has also committed $6.4 billion in funding to post-secondary institutions over four years, a move that can support core infrastructure and by extension, the quality of learning environments. In principle, this kind of funding can translate into improved academic offerings. However, the majority of these funds are directed toward institutional operating pressures (stabilizing budgets, offsetting revenue losses) rather than being earmarked specifically for classroom improvements or student-facing resources. As a result, while some benefits may reach the learning environment, there is no clear guarantee of how much of this funding will be experienced directly by students. What is clear, is that tuition continues to rise alongside it.

So, when the platforms we access information from can cloud truth, and our educational institutions are becoming increasingly too expensive to attend, where does one learn? How does a nation remain intelligent, never mind grow together?

At the macro, these changes extend beyond education itself and reshape the broader economy by embedding debt earlier into people’s lives. When students graduate with higher financial burdens, their capacity to spend, save, and take risks is constrained. Home ownership is delayed, entrepreneurship becomes less viable, and consumption is more cautious, all of which dampens long-term economic dynamism. At the same time, shifting the cost of education from the public to the individual redistributes financial pressure downward, concentrating risk among younger and lower-income populations while relieving it at the level of the state. The result is not simply a more expensive education system, but a more indebted population, one whose economic decisions are increasingly governed by repayment rather than possibility.

And this was not Ford’s first step into privatizing education. These changes build directly on a series of reforms introduced in 2019.

Privatization Seeded, 2019

That year, the Ford government significantly altered OSAP. The program was scaled back; reducing the amount of non-repayable grant funding available to students and tightening eligibility requirements. A system that had allowed many low-income students to access post-secondary education with little to no tuition cost was replaced with one that required a larger loan component. The province also removed the six-month interest-free grace period on the Ontario portion of student loans, meaning interest began accruing immediately after graduation on that portion.

In addition, the government introduced the Student Choice Initiative, which made certain ancillary fees optional for students. While framed as a cost-saving measure, it resulted in reduced funding for campus services such as student unions and clubs before being struck down in court.

Viewed together, these measures mark a consistent shift in how higher education is funded in Ontario. Public investment has been reduced or redirected, while the expectation that students will finance their own education has increased.

These recent changes do nothing but reinforce that direction. Allowing tuition to rise, while restructuring aid to rely more heavily on loans, increases the financial burden carried by students. The additional funding provided to institutions addresses system-level pressures but does not reduce the cost faced by individuals, it merely operates alongside policies that require students to absorb a greater share of that cost directly.

The broader effect is a gradual rebalancing of responsibility. The cost of maintaining post-secondary education does not disappear; it is redistributed. Where public funding once played a larger role in reducing barriers, students are now expected to take on more debt and manage a greater portion of the expense themselves.

This shift has tangible consequences. As tuition rises and grant support declines, students graduate with higher levels of debt. For some, this may shape decisions about further education, career paths, housing, or family planning. For others, the prospect of taking on that debt may deter them from pursuing post-secondary education altogether.

Access to education remains, but the conditions under which it is accessed are changing. Financial risk is becoming a more central part of that decision.

What is often presented as a set of necessary fiscal adjustments is, in effect, a continuation of a longer-term policy approach. Since 2019, Ontario’s post-secondary system has moved toward a model in which individuals bear a greater share of the cost, while public support is reduced or restructured.

The current changes do not represent a break from that approach. They extend it.

And as tuition begins to rise again and student aid becomes increasingly loan-based, the implications become clearer: higher education in Ontario is debt-driven and increasingly more dependent on the individual’s ability to absorb that cost. This becomes problematic because you cannot have a true democracy without properly informed (educated) citizens. By heightening the fiscal responsibility within the individual does it only continue to fuel the dilemma of a temporal split, where we are then forced to decide where we expend our time (more often based highly on economic factors).

This has always been the case. When I was going to univeristy, so many of my friends argued I should just graduate and jump into a trade right away to avoid the amount of debt that comes with being educated. It is a smart move: many of my most financially successful peers chose this route.

However, and I am by no means knocking the trades (I'm in an HVAC union), that rhetoric then solidifies into: education is too expensive, so why bother? And that was a decade ago. This is where the longer-term effects begin to surface. Over time, this contributes to a quiet brain drain, where talent, research capacity, and skilled graduates move to places that are willing to support them more directly. The result is a structural shift in the kind of workforce and intellectual base our society is able to sustain.

It is not just that education is unaffordable; it is that many cannot afford the time it demands before a sufficient return, already indebted and absorbed into the labour rhythms of a neoliberal economy.

What you should know, summarized:

• Tuition is going up again

  Ontario has ended the tuition freeze (in place since 2019). Schools can now raise tuition by up to 2% per year — increases that compound over time.

• Student aid is now mostly loans

  OSAP has shifted so that roughly 75% of aid is loans and only about 25% is grants (non-repayable). Students will graduate with more debt.

• Some grants have been removed entirely

  Students attending private career colleges no longer receive provincial grants, relying almost fully on loans.

• Government funding is going to schools, not students

  The province is investing billions into colleges and universities, but this does not lower tuition or reduce student debt.

• This is not new. It started in 2019, when Ford:

  • Cut OSAP grants and tightened eligibility

  • Eliminated “free tuition” for many low-income students

  • Introduced mandatory loan portions

  • Removed the Ontario interest-free grace period after graduation

  • Attempted to cut student-funded campus services

The direction is consistent. Over time, policy has shifted from public funding → individual responsibility

When, higher tuition + more loans really become:

• More student debt

• Greater financial pressure after graduation

• Harder access for lower-income students

Education isn’t disappearing, but it’s growing into an all too expensive debt driven economy with less public support.