How Are Students Supposed to Survive Like This With OSAP?
I genuinely do not understand OSAP anymore.
My tuition isn’t even being fully covered, yet I see so many other people getting significantly more than me even though their parents actually have income.
My family is literally living off savings. I work 48 hours every single week while being a full-time student because I’m trying to help support my family and also save money for a medically necessary surgery.
I barely get 3 hours of sleep most days.
And when I try talking to financial aid, I get basically no help. I’ve even gotten the whole “that’s how we all did it” attitude.
No. It absolutely isn’t.
OSAP used to give people way more support. Everything is more expensive now too. Tuition, rent, groceries, gas, literally everything.
I’m not even sitting here demanding free money. They can keep the grants if they want. Increase my loans. I literally just want enough funding to cover my tuition so I can actually stay in school.
I am not a robot. I already work 48 hours a week while studying full time. What exactly am I supposed to do? Work 60? 70? When am I supposed to sleep? When am I supposed to study?
This cannot be normal.
I feel like I’m already at rock bottom financially, and somehow my tuition still isn’t even covered.
Why was school more affordable and OSAP more supportive for people before our generation, when everything they were paying for was cheaper than it is now?
And the private college situation makes me even more angry. How are there people going to certain private colleges receiving huge amounts of OSAP funding, while students at public universities who are struggling this badly can’t even get their basic tuition covered?
How does that make any sense?
Someone who is working almost 50 hours a week, studying full time, helping their family financially, barely sleeping, and saving for a medically necessary surgery apparently still doesn’t qualify for enough assistance to cover tuition.
What more are we supposed to do?
And then on top of all of that, you pay thousands and thousands of dollars in tuition just to end up with professors who have ratings below 1.4 on Rate My Professors.
So pay an insane amount of money, barely get enough financial support to stay enrolled, destroy your sleep and health trying to work enough hours, and then get a terrible education on top of it.
Nice.
The worst part is the complete lack of empathy from some of the staff. You explain your situation and instead of someone actually trying to help you figure out your options, you feel like you’re being dismissed or mocked.
I’m genuinely at my breaking point. I don’t know how much more a person is expected to handle while working this much, studying full time, barely sleeping, and still being told the support available isn’t enough to even cover tuition.
If anybody has been in a similar situation with OSAP where your funding wasn’t enough to even cover tuition, please tell me what you did.
Did you request a review? Appeal your assessment? Contact someone outside your school’s financial aid office? Is there anything else I can actually do?
Because I genuinely don’t know how I’m supposed to keep doing this.