Sounds like a stupid question, right? The whole point of a rebate is to return a portion of money spent.
Wrong. Or at least it is for myself and thousands of other postsecondary students in my position.
If you are a student or a parent of a student, I am sure you are familiar with the 2012 Tuition Rebate that the Liberal government promised. It may have even swayed your vote. We were led to believe that the program would allow for college students to receive $800 per year and $1600 for those enrolled in university. What they didn’t tell us at election time were the criteria to be considered for the rebates.
In a nutshell, you must:
- be a full time student at an Ontario college or university
- have been out of high school for less than 4 years
- be enrolled in a first entry program (ie not postgraduate)
- your parents’ gross income must be less than $160,000
Now, having to be a full time student I can see. Going to school part time makes students ineligible for a lot of funding. Being in a first entry program doesn’t really seem to make sense to me, because students are students, and we’re all broke. But it also doesn’t apply to me, so I won’t worry too much about that.
My issues are with the other points. In order to be considered, your parents must make less than $160,000. Someone please explain to me how someone who’s parents make $80,000 each is in need of this rebate? Odds are in that case the student would not even be eligible for OSAP, because the parents make enough to pay for tuition. Why offer rebates to those who can easily afford tuition without relying on student loans?
But the real issue is in the second point. I have been out of high school for 5 years. I have been enrolled in postsecondary education for 4.5 of those years. I am currently completing the third year of my bachelor’s degree, but because I graduated high school in the wrong year, I will not be receiving the rebate. I believe the logic behind this point is to make mature students ineligible. While I don’t think this is necessarily fair, it falls into the same category as those doing a post-grad program. Basically it’s the government’s way of eliminating as many groups as possible.
So what’s my problem with all of this? I am not a mature student. I attended college for a year and a half before deciding to switch programs. I had to wait until September for my new program to start which required me to be out of school for almost a year. Had I been sitting at home since I graduated in 2007 twiddling my thumbs, I could sort of understand. (Only sort of). The fact that I have been enrolled in school for the last 3 years means nothing as far as this rebate is concerned. If someone had told me back when I was 18 that I better know exactly what I wanted to do with my life or I would end up losing funding, I might have taken a slightly different approach. I just cannot for the life of me understand how changing programs is being held against me.
So assuming that anyone has actually read this far, I can assume you’re thinking, “Okay great, you’re not getting the money. But why did you say you are losing money?!” Ah. It gets better.
In order to fund the new rebates, the government has decided to cancel the $150 textbook and technology grant which was available to most students every year. The logic being that if they’re giving you all this tuition back, you’ll have to pay for your own books. (Not that $150 pays for even one book, but that’s a whole other rant). So myself – and 2/3 of students enrolled at George Brown, according to The Toronto Star – will not only miss out on the new rebate, but we will lose that grant. That’s right. It will now cost me $150 more to go to school every year. Thanks, Dalton.
So for those of you who do meet the criteria, you must be thinking, “Wow, that’s crazy. Thank God I am fresh out of high school and can still get all this money!” And that’s okay. If I had a cheque waiting in the mail, I’d be thinking the same thing. But wait! There’s more.
If you’re already receiving OSAP, you will be automatically considered for the rebate. However, if you already receive OSAP, chances are you already receive the Ontario Access Grant. The amount of this grant will be deducted from the rebate. So let’s do some math.
I received an Ontario Access Grant of $960.
Tuition rebate of $800 – Ontario Access Grant of $960 = – $160.
What?! I OWE money?! Good thing I’m not eligible in the first place!
