Months from graduation, OSAP changes has student struggling to pay tuition

BLACK RIVER-MATHESON — After rebuilding her life following years of addiction, Krystal Ackland is finally close to achieving something she never thought possible: graduating from college.

Now, the 43-year-old Ramore woman is worried she may not be able to finish her Business Administration, Entrepreneurship and Management program at triOS College after the province paused Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) payments to private colleges.

“Basically, I learned overnight that there was no funding,” Ackland told TimminsToday. “It was either you pay out of pocket, or you withdraw from school.”

Ackland began the accelerated program in January and is scheduled to graduate in May 2027. She said she has maintained an average of approximately 90 per cent and has only a handful of courses left.

Her total tuition is $19,652. During her first funding period, she received $10,582 from OSAP, including $8,965 in grants and $1,617 in loans.

For her next funding period, she expected another $10,600 and to repay about $1,200. If funding is approved, she said the amount could instead include $7,800 in loans and only $2,800 in grants.

In the meantime, Ackland said the college gave her a choice: sign an agreement to pay the outstanding $9,070 in monthly installments or withdraw from the program.

She signed the agreement because she wants to finish, but said the $700 monthly payments will be difficult to manage. The payments start on Nov. 13.

Ackland is currently unable to work and receives approximately $1,400 a month in disability income, which she said barely covers her basic expenses.

She talked to her bank about a private student loan but couldn't secure one without a co-signer. An old Bell Mobility debt on her credit record has also complicated her efforts to access financing.

“I don't have thousands of dollars sitting in a bank account,” she said. “I have no way of coming up with this money on my own.”

Thousands of students are being impacted by the uncertainty with OSAP.

Last February, the government announced it would reduce the amount of money students could get in OSAP grants. At the time, the premier called the system unsustainable and claimed he’d heard stories about students misusing their OSAP money to buy things like cologne or watches.

Later in the year, reporting from The Trillium and The Canadian Press revealed that most of the increase in funding for OSAP over the past few years was going to private career colleges rather than publicly funded schools. Since then, documents filed in an OSAP-related court case have led to months of news stories about alleged fraud within the private career college system. Meanwhile, the Ford government has paused all OSAP payments to private colleges.

SEE: MPP says province ‘chose to punish everyone’ with career college OSAP pause
RELATED: Students brace for 'vast amount' of debt amid OSAP changes, tuition hikes

The pause has raised concerns among students who say they are caught up in a review of the sector despite having no involvement in the alleged misconduct.

For Ackland, the uncertainty threatens more than just her ability to pay tuition.

Originally from London, Ont., she moved to Ramore in 2021 to leave behind a life affected by addiction. She struggled with drug addiction for 17 years before moving north and rebuilding her life.

She credits her best friend, who died in a car crash a couple of years ago, and their family with helping her get sober and providing a safe place to start over. 

Returning to school was another step toward building a different future.

“I didn't even graduate high school … I had to even do a literacy test to even get into college … I’ve never accomplished anything. I never finish anything ever in my life. I've always started and dropped out, or started and quit, or walked away from it because it was too much. So this is huge for me,” she said.

She initially enrolled in college for better employment opportunities, but has since developed an interest in starting her own business.

She hopes to eventually offer services such as gardening, lawn care, painting and other home improvement work.

Ackland said she is also working with the college to explore a potential business grant, but must remain enrolled and maintain a 90 per cent average to qualify. She has a meeting scheduled with the school on Nov. 20 to discuss those opportunities.

She’s launched a GoFundMe campaign to help cover her tuition. Her initial goal was to raise $2,500 to help her through the first three months of payments, and about $400 had been raised as of Monday (Nov. 9).

Despite the financial pressure, Ackland said she intends to keep trying to complete the program.

“I'm going to try. It's going to be rough, but I'm going to try, for sure,” she said.

She hopes the provincial government will find a way to address concerns about the OSAP system without leaving students without the support they were counting on.

“I don't think it's fair that they did it to everybody,” she said.

— With files from The Trillium

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Marissa Lentz-McGrath, Local Journalism Initiative, TimminsToday.com.