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How do you get to the point where the cops and the auditor general are being called in to deal with problems in the Ontario Student Assistance Program ?

That’s a good question to ask after Nolan Quinn, the province’s Minister of Colleges and Universities, announced on Tuesday that it was happening. It came after internal investigations that started two years ago kept revealing bigger and bigger problems.

In the fall of 2024, the province says it “began receiving an increasing number of complaints about the growing volume of OSAP applications at private career colleges.”

It’s not unusual for private career colleges to have students financing their studies through OSAP. The colleges have had the same access to the program as public colleges and universities for decades.

‘Serious concerns’ raised during audit

As the complaints grew and irregularities were noticed, the province began working with Career Colleges Ontario, the association representing the private colleges. In May 2025, the federal government raised red flags about the practices of some colleges.

By July of that year, the province began targeted inspections of suspect colleges. Eventually, in December 2025, the government’s Forensic Investigation Team was brought in. That led to six college campuses being suspended from participation in the OSAP program.

By August, the problems had grown large enough that the ministry brought in accounting and consulting firm KPMG to assist them.

“Preliminary findings have identified serious concerns about the integrity of the OSAP system in the private post-secondary sector,” Quinn said.

It was found that there was inadequate verification of students, a lack of validation of coursework completion and a high concentration of OSAP applications from certain geographic areas. There were also concerns raised about some colleges regarding their ownership structure and partnerships with immigration consulting agencies.

“As a result, the government notified the auditor general last week and has also referred this matter to the Ontario Provincial Police. The ministry is continuing its work to investigate and gather information,” Quinn said.

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The warnings were there

Creating a mess this big doesn’t come down to one person and, in this case, even just one organization. There are several layers to this OSAP issue and plenty of blame to go around.

As with many things, much of this started with good intentions and ended with people taking advantage of a situation, while those in charge didn’t have their eyes on the ball.

OSAP is run as part of the Student Financial Assistance Branch of the Ministry of Colleges, Universities, Research Excellence and Security. The organization, though, appears to have a lot of autonomy, including deciding that it would investigate any irregularities on its own at the managerial level.

The problem here is that neither senior leadership within the wider ministry nor political staff within the minister’s office were alerted to problems early enough. They kept things to themselves when they should have been alerting higher-ups.

While the minister’s office and political oversight could have been alerted earlier, they also weren’t paying close enough attention to the file.

Failure to ask questions

The portion of OSAP grants given to private career colleges rose from about 12% of all grants in the 2019-20 school year to roughly 40% in the 2024-25 school year. That was when the minister’s office became fully involved, but they should have been noting the rise and asking questions sooner.

It likely didn’t help that there were three ministers while this problem was growing: Ross Romano, Jill Dunlop and Nolan Quinn, along with a revolving door of senior staff. Quinn took over in August 2024, just before the minister’s office began investigating problems in the system.

Even after that, the minister’s office wasn’t made fully aware of some irregularities. While the minister’s office should have been asking questions sooner, there is also a responsibility for the bureaucracy to brief those in charge.

Both sides failed in their tasks.

Follow the money

Outside of government, it was a completely different story.

While the government’s decision to lean on private career colleges during the pandemic — for quick training in needed skills such as personal support work — was the right one, less-than-scrupulous elements clearly saw an opportunity.

By the time the government was paying attention to this issue, private colleges were receiving 40% of the total grants given by OSAP, roughly $1 billion in 2024-25. While much of that likely went to legitimate students, with the police involved you can be sure that someone, or many someones, made out like bandits.

What this story proves, once again, is that for government to function properly, you need proper procedures in place for programs to work. You also need proper oversight from elected officials and their political staff.

In this case, we had neither.

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