More than 1,000 students gathered at the arts quad outside Dana Porter library on Wednesday morning, March 4, to protest against impending changes to OSAP funding.

WUSA President Damian Mikhail, Vice President Remington Zhi and Waterloo MPP Catherine Fife spoke to the crowd on the steps of the Dana Porter Library at the start of the rally. Students then marched across campus, heading towards the Student Life Centre before turning onto Ring Road. The gathering stopped briefly at MC and the old Needles Hall building before ending its circuit back at the Arts Quad. Arts Student Union (ASU) VP Academic Tanraj Dulai and president of Laurier Graduate TA Union PSAC 902 Shatha Mahmoud also gave speeches during the crowd’s pit stops.

Students across all years and faculties walked together while chanting slogans like “O-S-A-P, students should be debt free.” They called upon both Premier Doug Ford and Minister of Colleges and Universities Nolan Quinn to reverse OSAP changes.

The student strike comes after the provincial government’s announcement on Feb. 12 stating that the maximum percentage of grants and loans in funding would change beginning fall 2026. Up to 75 per cent of a student’s funding could come from loans in contrast to 15 per cent in previous years. For grants, that proportion of total funding would drop from 85 per cent to 25 per cent.

The move sparked outcry among the student body at UW and other postsecondary institutions across the province who rely on OSAP to get an education. WUSA held a vote from Feb. 27 to March 2 on whether or not to hold a student strike. 94 per cent of students who participated voted in favour.

“It is the game-changer for so many people,” Fife said of OSAP grants in her speech at the start of the rally, citing how they helped support her own postsecondary studies. “We know that public education and access to education is the great equalizer in society. We have a premier who’s very focused on the rich, and only the rich will be able to access this great university if they don’t back down on this short-sighted plan to reduce grants.”

Fife cited that 50 per cent of Ontario students need OSAP grants and loans to pursue postsecondary studies. “This is absolutely the way that students access their potential. When students in the province of Ontario reach their potential, the province reaches their potential.”

Fifth-year mathematical economics student Daisy Xiao came to the arts quad early before the rally. “Most of my friends, myself included… everyone I know who goes to university can afford to do so because of OSAP,” she said. Xiao added that the increase in student debt caused by the raised cap for loans is an unsustainable burden on students already struggling with high living costs and securing housing. “There’s so many different factors that are making life a lot more expensive… the worst thing you can do is attack education, because a lot of students need that support.”

Fourth-year political science student Kathryn Barrett echoed Xiao’s sentiment while holding up a sign crafted by Dulai with the words “HANDS OFF!” above a basket labelled “OSAP.”

“OSAP is what allowed me to go to university; I absolutely would not have been able to be here and get my degree without it,” Barrett said. “And so to hear Doug Ford brush it off as, ‘if students don’t want to take on debt, they should just not take basket-weaving courses,’ is quite insulting.”

She adds that her own field of study, one of the aforementioned arts and humanities that Ford called “basket-weaving courses” in press comments last month, is “the very thing that gave Doug Ford his platform” as an elected official. And even then, Barrett is “still in lots of debt even with previous OSAP levels, so it’s just unfair, to say the least.”

WUSA officers called upon students to maintain the momentum from the day’s rally and email their MPPs about how the OSAP cuts will affect them.

“We must remain hopeful in the fact that we are not fighting alone,” said Mikhail in his speech at the arts quad. “We are fighting as students and families across Ontario, and together, we can make a difference.”