With frigid temperatures and forecasted snow, around a hundred Londoners are currently taking over Victoria Park to protest the PC government’s recent changes to OSAP.
Cassandra Chapman is a Fanshawe student here in London and she says that the recent changes are harmful to low income students. Chapman says she helped organize the protest as this issue personally affects her as she relies on the province’s free tuition program.
“Free tuition is really what made [post-secondary education] happen for me.”
She also says that OSAP makes it hard for students to have any feasible options as they drastically cut the amount of loans from students who try to fund their studies with work.
“Even the [OSAP] calculator now […] they’ve updated the calculator already and students are talking about how astronomically different their estimates have already been. That’s making education more inaccessible for low-income families.”
This is the second protest in the city since the PC Government announced the changes last week. #LdnOnt #OSAP #Fanshawe #WesternU pic.twitter.com/8CkLwOAdd8
— XFM News (@XFMNews) January 25, 2019
Chapman also says that this will affect all students regardless of if they are aware or not. The government is making student fees optional, which puts funding for clubs, programs, and services in jeopardy. Proposed changes include removing the 6-month interest free grace period, ending free tuition cuts in loans for students who were previously eligible.
Among the crowd were Western and Fanshawe students, Student and TA unions from their respective institutions, and London M.P.Ps.
This is the second protest in the city after Western held a protest last week on campus. The public protest is set to take place until 6PM today at Victoria Park.
