Mature students to get help with tuition

Low-income mature students who go to college or university will also be eligible for free tuition — for the first time providing them with the same level of financial help as teens applying straight from Ontario high schools.

“We have really focused our attention on reducing barriers to postsecondary education,” Deb Matthews, Ontario’s minister of advanced education and skills development, told students gathered at Toronto’s City Adult Learning Centre for a news conference held with Education Minister Mitzie Hunter.

Speaking to reporters after, Matthews said under the old system, the 30-per-cent tuition rebate was only offered for the four years after high school graduation, and mature students also didn’t qualify for an access grant geared to low-income families.

The government’s new, streamlined aid plan, which comes into effect this fall, provides students whose families earn less than $50,000 with nonrepayable grants covering their full tuition, and in most cases, more. Mature students will be eligible for all new grants.

Matthews, who returned to university at age 42 to finish a bachelor of arts degree, continuing on to earn a doctorate, said about 150,000 students will receive the free tuition, which includes teens as well as mature students.

The cost of the tuition is expected to be covered by the elimination of post-secondary tax credits. New Democrat MPP Peter Tabuns (Toronto-Danforth) wonders if the government really has the funding to cover the free tuition plan, and while it’s a “good idea that mature students have the funding . . . if they are just simply repackaging previous allocations, what are the implications of that?”