Grits deliver 30% tuition break
TORONTO — Ontario postsecondary students will get their promised 30% break on tuition, the Liberal government announced Thursday.
Glen Murray, the minister of colleges and universities, said the government will find the $420-million cost of the program by making cuts within the current post-secondary budget, including the axing of the Ontario Textbook and Technology Grant.
Students could begin applying for the rebate as of Thursday.
The grant means an extra $800 this semester for university students and $365 for college students.
It is available only to full-time undergraduate students whose families earn $160,000 a year or less, and the students must be no more than four years out of high school.
The Canadian Federation of Students-ontario, which represents about one-third of Ontario’s college and university students, says the tuition cut falls short of what’s needed.
“Despite Dalton Mcguinty’s repeated promise to reduce tuition fees, his government is introducing a grant that will reach just over 300,000 of Ontario’s more than 900,000 students,” chairman Sandy Hudson said in a statement.
The organization had sought an across-the-board tuition fee cut for all post-secondary students.
Premier Dalton Mcguinty had previously mentioned cost considerations when asked why he chose to limit the fee break.
The Ontario Conservatives say they’re disappointed too, but for a different reason.
The government’s decision to forge ahead with the new spending commitment will cost taxpayers dearly at a time when the province is already deeply in the red, the Tories say.
“While some students get a short-term reprieve on their tuition, they’ll be paying off the Mcguinty government’s overspending for the rest of their lives,” Tory MPP Rob Leone says in a statement.