In an opinion piece published in The Hamilton Spectator on October 13, 2026, Dr. Paul S. Evans, Vice President Academic at McMaster Divinity College, responds to concerns about Ontario’s pause on OSAP funding for students at private postsecondary institutions. He highlights the impact on Hamilton students who had already arranged their finances and committed to the fall semester, and calls attention to the consequences for established, degree-granting institutions and the communities they serve:
This fall, students in our city did everything asked of them. They were approved for OSAP, enrolled, paid tuition, and arranged their jobs, rent and family lives around that support. Then, on October 6, weeks into the semester, the province paused OSAP payments to students at private institutions.
The pause is meant to address serious fraud at a small number of career colleges, and the government is right to pursue it. But it has also reached long-established, degree-granting schools with no connection to those investigations, including McMaster Divinity College, which has served Hamilton and has operated under its own provincial Act since 1957.
Many of our students are Hamiltonians preparing to serve churches, hospitals and community agencies across this region. Some may now have to withdraw mid-term and lose what they have already paid. Had the change come before September, they could have planned. Instead, they are bearing the cost of wrongdoing that has nothing to do with them.
Small faith-based schools that depend on tuition may not withstand this, and Hamilton would be poorer for losing them.
Read this article and other responses in The Hamilton Spectator.
