Ontario career college forced into layoffs as student funding stalls

Detailed summary

A school that says it plays by the rules warns that continuing to withhold student funding hurts Ontario’s workforce and could put good actors out of business.

As the Ford government cracks down on private career colleges over alleged student loan fraud, a school that says it plays by the rules warns that continuing to withhold student funding hurts Ontario’s workforce and could put good actors out of business.

“Our revenues and income completely stopped all of a sudden, which resulted in layoffs. After 35 years, we did layoffs for the first time Monday,” said Muraly Srinarayanathas, the chairman of Computek College, a private career college with locations in Toronto, Ajax and Marhkam.

“We’ve requested the ministry to be first in terms of the inspections so that we can get back to what we do best, which is serving our students,” he said.

Computek mainly offers training for those entering healthcare, business and technology.

It’s one of hundreds of private career colleges where thousands of students have had their promised student loans cut as the province said it’s investigating “serious concerns” about alleged Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) fraud.

But the blanket ban has been “confusing,” said Srinarayanathas, as Computek is audited each year and is visited by inspectors annually, indicating a clean record.

It’s now not only upended the lives of students, but the OSAP ban has also put the college on shaky financial ground, he said.

In July, the Ford government first disqualified students at five private career colleges from OSAP loans due to concerns about enrollment practices and unusually high concentration of student loan applications.

By October, the government extended the OSAP ban to all 242 private career colleges as the province investigated “serious concerns” raised by the federal government, advocacy groups and internal audits and inspections.

Opening of the article, excerpted from Global News. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.