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Students are pleased with many of the recommendations within the Premier’s Highly Skilled Workforce Expert Panel Report Building the Workforce of Tomorrow: A Shared Responsibility, published today. The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) was included in the consultations leading up to this report, which offers recommendations that are in line with our recently updated Student Employment Policy.

TORONTO, May 20, 2016 - OUSA's new Steering Committee met for the first time and is proud to announce the election of our 2016-17 Executive Officers:

Today’s release of the 2016 Ontario budget announced enormous changes to financial assistance that will make university education more accessible and affordable, according to the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA). The newly announced Ontario Student Grant (OSG) builds on existing programs to increase the amount of grant money available to students, and according to OUSA, focuses on helping students with the most financial need.

Students in the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) have published their pre-budget submission Educated Investments: Providing Effective Systems and Enriching Experiences to the provincial government. The submission focuses on two key areas for investment: improved student financial assistance and expanded opportunities for work-integrated learning.

Students across Ontario are participating in “Time Out” (#timeoutON), a campaign asking for a tuition freeze to be implemented in Ontario’s next tuition framework, which will be established in 2016-2017. The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) is rallying students to ask the provincial government for a “funded freeze”. This means that yearly average tuition increases of 3% and 5% would no longer be allowed; the loss in tuition revenue would be fully subsidized by increased provincial investment in universities, ensuring that quality is not impacted. The funded freeze would reduce student debt and restore public investment in education.

Students are pleased with many of the recommendations within the university funding formula report Focus on Outcomes, Centre on Students: Perspectives on Evolving Ontario’s University Funding Model, published today. The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) was included in consultations and published Formulating Change in August, a submission to the government recommending key developments students want to see in a new funding formula.

Student leaders, representing over 140,000 undergraduate and professional students, are traveling to Queen’s Park for “LobbyCon” to meet with MPPs and key decision makers to ask for improvements in Ontario’s universities. Representatives from the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) will sit in over fifty meetings and lobby for key changes and updates to the university funding formula, targeted investments in work-integrated learning opportunities, and an overhaul of educational tax credits.

The Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) is proud to announce the release of Formulating Change: Recommendations for Ontario’s University Funding Formula Reform. In early 2015, the provincial government announced plans to conduct a review of the processes by which it allocates funds to universities, with the goal of developing a more “quality-driven, sustainable and transparent” model of distributing resources. OUSA’s submission contains student-centric and quality-based propositions on how Ontario can improve and modernize the funding framework.

Ontario students are pleased to see improvements to Student Financial Assistance needs assessments in the Ontario 2015 Provincial Budget. New improvements include the removal of in-study income exemptions, a simplified student contribution, the decoupling of grants and loans as well as a vehicle exemption. By addressing the assessment process, the budget makes the system more accessible, understandable and empowers students to support their education while in school. These changes will make it easier for students to continue to finance their education and can have the power to bring Ontario’s students above the low-income cutoff while providing them with the ability to save money for during and after school without penalty.

The Ontario Undergraduate Alliance (OUSA) is proud to announce the release of “Those Who Can, Teach; Evaluating Teaching and Learning Strategies in Ontario’s Universities”, a submission exploring pedagogy and instruction methods within Ontario’s universities. The submission calls on the provincial government and universities to better prioritize teaching quality, and provides nineteen targeted recommendations to improve the caliber of education in universities.