Trudeau Says Student Loan Interest Is Still Being Waived For Post-Secondary Students In Canada

For those with national student loans, you're being reminded that interest on loans is still frozen and won't start to be applied again until 2023.

On August 17, 2022, Justin Trudeau tweeted about the upcoming start of the school year and what the federal government is doing to help students.

"Students are heading back to campuses soon, and expenses like tuition and supplies add up fast," he said.

"We've also waived interest on Canada Student Loans until March 2023," Trudeau continued.

After finishing post-secondary school, you don't have to pay back your loan for six months and there is no interest on it during that time.

When that period is over, you usually have to start to repay your Canada Student Loan.

But until March 2023, you won't have to pay interest, even if that six-month grace period has already ended for you.

"We're supporting you with grants and programs like the Canada Learning Bond and Apprenticeship Loan," Trudeau said.

The Canada Learning Bond gives kids money to help pay for their education and it starts with an initial payment of $500 into a Registered Education Savings Plan.

Then, $100 gets added for each benefit year of eligibility up to the year the student turns 15. The maximum amount is $2,000.

As of 2022, eligible people who didn't get the money as kids can apply themselves when they turn 18 years old and until the day before they turn 21 as long as they were born in 2004 or later.

The Canada Apprentice Loan helps people complete an apprenticeship in a designated trade. You get up to $4,000 in interest-free loans per period of technical training.

Trudeau said that you can find out what support you're eligible for by going online to the federal government's student aid and education planning page.

When it comes to other programs that were introduced because of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was revealed that almost 100,000 students in Canada could avoid full CERB repayments.

That's because they should've gotten money from the Canada Emergency Student Benefit instead of the CERB.