The wonderful world of OSAP

[tracy]

Re: RE: The wonderful world of OSAP

Yes you can. I was young when I got my first mortgage. In a credit system, debt is a foundation or an investment.


The governments in Canada pay 75% of the cost of education already......I would call that quite the subsidy for students.

There is also debt forgiveness, and my wife did receive some forgiveness for the loans she took out. So she got her education paid for to the tune of 80 - 85%.

No grant or debt relief for me. I had to pay it all back, 100%.

Me too. My student loan is down to $450 as of this month and should be paid off in February. I can't wait! I've been able to pay about 18K on it in the last year thanks to working a lot of overtime.

 

[Said1]

Re: RE: The wonderful world of OSAP

They do it in Germany too from my understanding. The Germans I know thought it was great, except for the "professional students" it created. Just a bunch of "kids" who don't want to go out into the work force so they just stay in school for free.

I'm under the impression education is a personal investment of time and money, so loans make the most sense to me. It also gives an incentive to not just warm a seat in a classroom....

Sometimes I get the feeling I'm majoring "Professional Student"! I'd never go full time though, I'm no workaholic!

 

[Said1]

Re: RE: The wonderful world of OSAP

Yes you can. I was young when I got my first mortgage. In a credit system, debt is a foundation or an investment.


The governments in Canada pay 75% of the cost of education already......I would call that quite the subsidy for students.

There is also debt forgiveness, and my wife did receive some forgiveness for the loans she took out. So she got her education paid for to the tune of 80 - 85%.

No grant or debt relief for me. I had to pay it all back, 100%.

Me too. My student loan is down to $450 as of this month and should be paid off in February. I can't wait! I've been able to pay about 18K on it in the last year thanks to working a lot of overtime.

Good for you!

I had reasonable payments and used my income tax returns to put lump sum amounts on it too. Didn't take long to pay off, but I didn't borrow that much either!

I feel sorry for students who borrow to the MA or Phd level, that's a daunting amount to payback. On the other hand, your're brain is worth 50K+, you should be able to at least make manager at Chapters. :lol: Just kidding!

 

[Jay]

I think 50K+ is a starting point though. I just don't feel sorry for students who carry a 40K or so debt, and earn 40K salary....

 

[DasFX]

I'm not sure how many of you all are students who are getting OSAP, but up untill 1:00pm today I was. And now because of their rules about recieving osap I am no longer a college student. I found out earlier today that they had decided to pull the money I was counting on to survive this year. And what sends my termper flying is that they couldn't even be bothered to tell me this so I'd be prepared. And so now I have no degree, no money, no job, and of course no chance of getting back into school untill the OSAP that I owe so far is paid off.

This is odd, the OSAP program is pretty good. I got OSAP all through my years at school 97-01 and my sister is currently using it. Why did they pull the money, there must be some reasonable explanation. Did you fail to submit a form, did you ever lie on a previous application? Did you not carry the prescribed course load? There are many valid reasons for this.

I know everyone loves to knock the government and automatically blame them for anything, but are you sure you just didnt' follow the rules? I feel bad for you, but at the same time I cannot see the program cutting you off for no good reason.

As for not have grants and what not, well that is a separate issue. OSAP offers automatic debt relief in that the most one can owe in any given year is 7400 dollars. So after a 4 year program, you can owe a maximum of about 30,000. I owed a little less, about 26,000 which seems like a lot, but I got it paid off in 3 years and am done with it.

 

[LindzyRae]

The biggest issue Jay is that OSAP provides next to no bursaries (not being loans), you cannot strap a young person in debt at the beginning of their lives.

I was going to be extreamly lucky. I was suppose to be recieving $3000 in burseries this semester! They do sometimes give burseries, but you're right, it's not that often. After all $3000 out of the $17000 that I owe so far... well.

Also, I won't be able to go back to school untill I pay all that off because I can't afford to go to school without osap and they won't let me have more now tthat I've been denied osap.
This is a less than plesent situation. :angryfire:

 

[LindzyRae]

I'm not sure how many of you all are students who are getting OSAP, but up untill 1:00pm today I was. And now because of their rules about recieving osap I am no longer a college student. I found out earlier today that they had decided to pull the money I was counting on to survive this year. And what sends my termper flying is that they couldn't even be bothered to tell me this so I'd be prepared. And so now I have no degree, no money, no job, and of course no chance of getting back into school untill the OSAP that I owe so far is paid off.

This is odd, the OSAP program is pretty good. I got OSAP all through my years at school 97-01 and my sister is currently using it. Why did they pull the money, there must be some reasonable explanation. Did you fail to submit a form, did you ever lie on a previous application? Did you not carry the prescribed course load? There are many valid reasons for this.

I know everyone loves to knock the government and automatically blame them for anything, but are you sure you just didnt' follow the rules? I feel bad for you, but at the same time I cannot see the program cutting you off for no good reason.

As for not have grants and what not, well that is a separate issue. OSAP offers automatic debt relief in that the most one can owe in any given year is 7400 dollars. So after a 4 year program, you can owe a maximum of about 30,000. I owed a little less, about 26,000 which seems like a lot, but I got it paid off in 3 years and am done with it.

I have no idea then how I happen to owe just over $17000 because this wa suppose to be the end of my second year and that's what the osap site sais I owe.

And Nope, I did everything right, I know this for sure because I spent about 2 hours going over every little detail withthe people in the finacial aid office.

 

[I think not]

LindzyRae

I cannot begin to tell you how much I feel for you, this is an issue that has driven me to create a non-profit organization that helps Canadian and American students alike. The Canadian governments have failed miserably in this area. Anybody can tell you their side of the story and the end result will be the same. Your government is depriving the "low income" the cornerstone of civilization: EDUCATION, simply because they cannot afford it. PM me!

 

[DasFX]

I have no idea then how I happen to owe just over $17000 because this wa suppose to be the end of my second year and that's what the osap site sais I owe.

And Nope, I did everything right, I know this for sure because I spent about 2 hours going over every little detail withthe people in the finacial aid office.

Loan forgiveness is calculated after one graduates. It won't show up untill then and even then you have to fill out a form to be considered for it.

Once you've been put into OSAP's bad books, it is tough to get out. Rather than stop going to school, could you not fund school through a student loan through the bank? Going back to school after one stops is very difficult.

 

[nitzomoe]

RE: The wonderful world o

student line of credit is a very good short term option until this gets cleared out.

 

[poligeek]

I'm recently graduated (Debt load $120K) and have had a fantastic problem with OSAP every single semester.

I have however found out that if I put up enough fuss, visit the Financial Aid office frequently, with lots of documentation, and keep lists of peoples names that I eventually do get my OSAP back.

The private student credit line has saved by butt a few times, however it is also one of the reasons my debt load is higher because of the interest incurred by private loans ontop of OSAP.

Reason's why my OSAP has been pulled in various semesters:

1) Data error entry by some OSAP person at the student loan centre moved my parents address to my student address which meant that my parents would have lived within 40 KM of my school (they're a 5 hour drive away). Had to prove that my parents had lived in their house for the past 20 some-odd years, that the address listed was my tiny bachelor rental in parkdale and not a space 3 people could possibly live in and oh, yeah my parents are divorced so there's no way they both moved there at the same time.

2) I've had various POS cars over the year's glued together with duct tape, I typically bought them for $200 - $500 and drove them into the ground within a year. In my third year OSAP was under the beliefe that I currently owned more than 3 cars making my net worth too much to qualify for OSAP... had to go to Ministry of Transportation (another of my favourite bureaucracies) to get proof that previous three cars were worth less than the $12 that I paid them to write the note to say that so that OSAP would give me money.

3) I declared my tips as income. I actually didn't get any OSAP at all in my second semester of my 1st year because I declared my min. wage waitressing job ($5.95/hr at that time) and tips.... from then on I didn't file a tax return for the next 5 years making it so OSAP could never verify my income... I also recommend submitting a ridiculously low income since OSAP seems to belive that they can begin lowering your OSAP once you make over $7,000 - which is so obviously an easy amount to live off of and pay for books, tutition etc...

4) OSAP ceased to belive that the department I belonged to existed.... needed to prove existence of department.

5) My younger brother entered school and OSAP thought we were the same person.... really our first names begin with the same letter and we have the same last name, but is it that hard to tell us apart?.... needed to prove I was indeed a separate person.

The funny thing about all of these as I have heard many more outrageous stories just standing in the line with the zillion other students faceing the exact same problems.

Good Luck!