OUSA’s 2025 Advocacy Priorities, Postsecondary Funding, and Student Challenges in Ontario
Author(s): Scott Douglas Jacobsen
Publication (Outlet/Website): A Further Inquiry
Publication Date (yyyy/mm/dd): 2025/03/19
Tiffany Li Wu is Manager of Operations & Communications of the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA). In her role, she communicates the organization’s goals, advocacy priorities, and policy development processes.In 2025, the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) prioritizes investing in post-secondary education, housing, food insecurity, and combating hate-motivated attacks. These focus areas address government grants, financial aid, mental health, and support for international students. OUSA develops policies through a student-driven process, involving annual General Assemblies where delegates from member schools debate and ratify policies. Unique for its non-partisan, evidence-based advocacy, OUSA conducts a province-wide student survey to inform its strategies. Key challenges from the 2024 Ontario Budget include inadequate funding for education, student housing, and OSAP, prompting OUSA to advocate for increased government support to enhance affordability and accessibility in Ontario’s post-secondary system.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: What are the goals and plans for the Ontario Undergraduate Student Alliance (OUSA) for 2025?
Tiffany Li Wu: OUSA’s annual advocacy priorities are set by the Board of Directors based on current student concerns and government advocacy strategy. For 2024-25, the Board has determined the following four priorities: investing in post-secondary education, housing, food insecurity, and responses to hate-motivated attacks as advocacy goals for the year. These topics focus on government operating grants, student financial aid, mental health, and international students. We are also monitoring the potential for a 2025 provincial election and in that case, we will be advocating on post-secondary sector sustainability, housing, food insecurity, and student financial aid to all political parties.
Jacobsen: How does OUSA develop and ratify its organizational policies from election cycle to election cycle?
OUSA’s policy papers on post-secondary issues are active for a four year period but do not necessarily overlap with election cycles. Every year, four to six policy papers are selected from our library and are amended to align with current student concerns and consider any legislative or policy changes by government since it was last ratified. Depending on the developments in the sector, new policies may also be proposed which was recently exemplified by our Responding to the Blue Ribbon Panel Report policy paper (not yet published but passed). These policy papers are edited and written entirely by students. They are brought to our General Assembly, a conference we host twice a year, where student representatives from each of our member schools come together to provide further feedback on the policy papers. At the end of the conference, all the delegates participate in a final debate and ratification of the policies. Internal organizational policies to govern and guide OUSA are decided by the Board of Directors as needed.
Jacobsen: What is unique about its approach to advocacy and similar to other associations and federations?
One of OUSA’s pillars in our approach to advocacy is the student-driven nature of the organization. Our Board of Directors are entirely made up of current students or recent graduates, who guide the advocacy and strategic direction of the organization. As mentioned before, we also centre student voices in our policy process as they author, edit, and vote on the policies OUSA advocates on. We are a non-partisan organization and thus, our advocacy is targeted to all political parties using stances from our policy papers to maintain integrity of the student voice in our relationships with elected officials. We also run a biennial survey that gathers comprehensive information on students’ experiences of their university education, and this is the only province-wide survey of its kind. We use this data in our lobby efforts as well as in our policy papers, in order to ensure we are providing evidence-based recommendations to government.
Jacobsen: In annual publication, what issues are highlighted that affect undergraduate students at OUSA member institutions?
As mentioned before, priorities change annually depending on emerging concerns from students and strategic advocacy tactics. Issues that OUSA has highlighted over the past couple of years that affect undergraduate students include student financial aid, sector sustainability, housing, food insecurity, gender-based violence, and mental health. Recommendations for our priorities this year can be found in the attached document. Additionally, we annually publish Educated Solutions, a magazine that brings together the province’s post-secondary stakeholders as authors of various articles about a relevant issue in the sector at a given time. Previous editions of Educated Solutions can be found here.
Jacobsen: What is the purpose of OUSA’s General Assembly?
OUSA’s General Assembly brings students together from all of our member institutions and occurs at the final stage in our policy process. Throughout the four days of the conference, all student delegates get the opportunity to view the proposed papers and give feedback on our policy recommendations, ensuring that each paper reflects the views of their student bodies. The number of delegates that come from each university is proportional to the size of their student body – the larger the student body, the more delegates a school can bring to attend the conference. After the feedback sessions, student authors spend their evenings considering the comments and implementing it into the paper. On the final day, students are able to propose any final amendments, all of which are then voted on individually before the paper is officially ratified by students.
Jacobsen: What is OUSA’s vision for post-secondary education in Ontario?
All of OUSA’s advocacy aims to guide our province towards a more affordable, accessible, high-quality, and accountable post-secondary education system. These are our guiding principles as we develop all of our policy recommendations. Importantly, our recommendations actively consider an intersectional lens in order to promote equity within higher education and ensure that our policies reflect the specific needs of marginalized students related to our guiding principles.
Jacobsen: Which event brings OUSA student leaders to Queen’s Park?
Each November, OUSA’s Student Advocacy Conference brings two representatives from each of our member schools to Queen’s Park. We spend the week meeting with as many MPPs and Ministry staff as possible, and advocate on the priorities that our board has laid out for the given year. We also host a Queen’s Park reception at some point during this week, often in collaboration with our fellow student advocacy groups.
Jacobsen: What key challenges did OUSA identify in response to the 2024 Ontario Budget?
Although OUSA appreciated the government’s $1.3 billion investment in post-secondary education, this number fell significantly short of the $2.5 billion needed to keep the sector viable, according to the Blue Ribbon Panel. This budget allocation does not do enough to address the long-term needs of institutions, nor does it resolve the chronic underfunding of the sector which is particularly worrisome under the impacts of the federal cap on international visas. Students currently contribute over 60% towards university operating revenue through tuition and fees; despite this, a continued lack of government funding will ultimately impact student supports and services. This dampens the quality of post-secondary experiences for students and leaves them without the critical resources that they rely on, like mental health and accessibility services, to carry them through their education.
Additionally, the lack of targeted funding for student housing initiatives was further disappointing. Although student housing was mentioned under the Building Ontario Fund, students are in a uniquely vulnerable position when it comes to rental costs – they face time-sensitive pressures to secure housing in highly competitive markets, surging the prices for units, and pay 25% more than the national average rental unit cost. While the supply of student housing is not currently meeting demand, more needs to be done in order to alleviate the current financial pressures of rent on students.
Finally, for the third year in a row, Ontario’s 2024 budget made no mention of OSAP funding. Despite the rising need for direct financial support in order to address the cost-of-living crisis, there continues to be no substantial improvements to OSAP. As a primary mechanism to facilitate accessibility and affordability of post-secondary education in the province and tangibly benefit students, it is critical that financial aid be at the forefront of post-secondary funding decisions.
Overall, while we were appreciative of the continued tuition freeze and investments to gender-based and sexual violence support, the 2024 budget had several shortcomings related to the needs of post-secondary students, exacerbating the the challenges that they are currently facing.
Jacobsen: Thank you for the opportunity and your time, Tiffany.
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