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Some experts are concerned that post-secondary students will have access to less money through the Canada Student Grant (CSG), according to a hidden line item in Budget 2025.
“School is going to suck for more students,” said Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates (HESA), a consulting firm that analyzed the budget’s effect on postsecondary education.
The CSG is a scholarship for students from low- and middle-income families. All students are automatically assessed for the scholarship when they apply for provincial or territorial student aid.
Usher said he did not discover any additional money not being set aside for CSG in the coming years. The government had been setting aside additional funds since 2020 to increase CSG payments from $3,000 to at least $4,200.
CBC asked Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC) if the grant would return to $3,000. A spokesperson wrote in an email that “further details will be communicated in due course.”
In the 2023-2024 academic year, 586,000 full-time students received $2.6 billion through CSG. That year there were 1.9 million full-time equivalent enrollments across Canada, according to HESA.
Usher said the apparent reduction will lead to more debt among students who have relied on grants.
Reductions after 2025
Usher explained that in 2019, eligible full-time students could receive a maximum of $3,000 annually from CSG. During the 2019 election, the Liberals promised to increase the payments to $4,200 a year.
Amid the first COVID-19 closures in April 2020, the government decided to increase the subsidy up to $6,000 annually. That level of funding was renewed through July 2023.
In the 2023 budget, payments were reduced to $4,200, and the 2024 budget maintained that level for another year.
The 2025 budget contains a line item showing the government is providing $1.2 billion for the current fiscal year, but small reductions each subsequent year through 2030.
Usher said that tells him the CSG will fall again, but he didn’t trust that assessment because he found the entire budget to be “sloppily put together.”
“I can’t understand if it’s because the budget table is a [$1-billion] mistake… or if it’s because they’re too cowardly to say directly that’s what they’re doing,” he said.
Other experts told CBC by email that they had also interpreted the budget to mean the CSG would be reduced.
In its pre-budget presentation this year, the Canadian Association of University Professors recommended increasing the maximum CSG pay to $7,000.
“A little fake”
Jack Coen, president of the University of Ottawa Students’ Union (UOSU), said he was surprised by how deeply buried the change was.
“If they want to talk about it being a sacrificial budget, that’s understandable given the circumstances, but not letting young Canadians know what they’re sacrificing… I think that’s a little disingenuous,” he said.
Other budget items that could affect post-secondary institutions and students include a summer jobs program and funding to fill Canada Research Chair positions.
Sean Joe-Ezigbo, president of the Carleton University Student Association, said students appreciate the other measures in the budget, but a potential grant cut is a “point of frustration” when they already face rising rates of youth unemployment and food insecurity.
“Having support in one place and then taking it away in another doesn’t really help, does it?” said. “[The] “Students who depend on this expect this to happen so they can have a good, solid education without having to take on a million extra tasks.”
Usher doesn’t think lower grants will necessarily deter students from pursuing postsecondary education, but he worries they will end up worse off once they graduate.
“It means more debt,” he said.
Parliament is expected to vote on the budget on Monday.
