TORONTO — Ontario has referred the issue of student financial assistance payments at private career colleges to the provincial police after preliminary audit findings identified “serious concerns,” the government said Tuesday. Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn said in a statement that the ministry launched targeted inspections of career colleges last year in response to growing concerns about Ontario Student Assistance Program usage and in August had KPMG begin an audit. “While that work is ongoing, preliminary findings have identified serious concerns about the integrity of the OSAP system in the private post-secondary sector,” he wrote. “These include common ownership, the involvement of immigration services firms and co-location between private career colleges and immigration recruitment or immigration services firms, inadequate student validation and verification of course enrolment and outcomes, and unusually high concentrations of OSAP applications submitted from the same geographic locations.” As a result, the government notified the auditor general last week and has also referred this matter to the Ontario Provincial Police, Quinn wrote. The Canadian Press has reported that the total of provincial grants sent to students at just seven career colleges in 2024-25 was about $385 million, the same amount that went to students at all of Ontario’s publicly funded colleges. Court records show that Career Colleges Ontario, an association representing the sector and the body that processes their students’ OSAP applications, has been warning the province about possible “suspicious” OSAP activity for years, dating back to January 2023. At the same time, the government has paused all OSAP payments for career college students while the audit is ongoing. It has thrown the entire sector into uncertainty. Disruptions for students The ministry often approves which schools can accept OSAP funding over the summer, but news of the pause Tuesday came as the academic year is already well underway. Career Colleges Ontario said the approval delays are causing significant disruption for schools, which have to make operational decisions without clear information or timelines, and for students who don’t know if they can afford to start – or remain in – classes. “We hope the government will introduce a policy that promptly addresses improper conduct and targets those who have acted wrongly,” the association wrote in a statement. “Career Colleges Ontario was instrumental in bringing these concerns forward to the government in the first place, and it is not fair that students across the sector who have done nothing wrong are now being impacted as a result.” The sector-wide delays are affecting not just schools that Career Colleges Ontario raised concerns about, but also schools such as Mothercraft, which has been offering early childhood education programs for decades and has a “stellar” compliance record, said executive director Michele Lupa. “We’re still waiting to hear if we continue to be an eligible institution for OSAP,” Lupa said in an interview. “So, needless to say, that’s a little concerning. We’re six weeks into the academic year, and we have students who are relying on OSAP to be able to carry out their studies. So they’re getting anxious, needless to say, and we are too.” Mothercraft graduates about 125 new ECEs every year, and those graduates are especially critical at a time when the child-care sector is trying to expand under the national affordable child-care program, Lupa said. Also in high demand at the moment are dental hygienists, and first-semester student Daliah Gardoque’s program at the Toronto College of Dental Hygiene and Auxiliaries is in OSAP limbo, too. “It’s extremely stressful,” said Gardoque, who started an online petition asking the ministry to “urgently address the ongoing uncertainty.” “I’m privileged enough to have a decent amount of savings, but that’s only to keep me afloat until the end of first semester. So after that, I wouldn’t really know what I’m going to do. But a lot of people are right now not focused on their exams just because they’re thinking like, ‘Is there any point?’ Because if OSAP doesn’t come in the next month, they might as well drop out.” This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 6, 2026. Allison Jones, The Canadian Press
