In addition to changes with OSAP and tuition, the provincial government introduced the Student Choice Initiative.
According to their news release, this initiative will “ensure transparency, choice and ease of decision-making, Ontario is introducing a plan to ensure non-tuition student fees are clearly communicated and give students choice regarding where their money is spent. Going forward, institutions will be required to provide an online opt-out option for all non-essential non-tuition fees.”
Sehra Rajpreet, a UW student, disagrees.
“University is not just going to school, it’s run by different clubs and academies and that kind of stuff, it’s an entire experience,“ he said.
The Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities released a document in March, “Tuition Fee Framework and Ancillary Fee Guidelines”, which included guidelines for categorizing services as essential or non-essential.
As of now, UW is still classifying all of its different services. Some services, such as equity services provided by Feds, are classified as essential; and others, such as Feds Advocacy, are considered non-essential. The full classifications, and their consequences, remain to be seen.
[…] changes included: removal of all free-tuition and introducing a mandatory 10 per cent loan; the Student Choice Initiative, which makes some “non-essential” fees optional; and a 10 per cent reduction in fees across the […]