Canada - Mature Students - OSAP changes?

[daverobev]

Can anyone point to a website, or explain, how the upcoming changes to OSAP (just OSAP? Is there a Federal change too?) works for mature students? Does it work off previous year income or current?

I'm wondering if I can get some kind of assistance if I was to go back to university in, say, 2018, assuming a low income in 2017 (2016 will have been a 'normal' year with some cap gains) - less work for me and DW on mat leave, so we'll be (income) poor but (asset) rich. I'd like to do something completely different (Political Science, or English, or... heh, Economics, "Environmental Economics and Public Policy" sounds fun), but I don't think I can justify it if I have to pay full price out of pocket.

In fact, I can't even work out how much full price OOP would be..

[Goldielocks]

Going back to school as a married, mature student has two challenges:

1)  family income is taken into account
2)  your RRSP and TFSA will be taken into account (but not your spouses')

This is from my memory of calculating federal student loan / bursary application when my husband went back to school.  Here, the application for provincial is the same as for federal, so only small differences in approvals.

Because of this, we only "just" could have received a loan because of child care being suddenly deductible from income.  It was not worth the bother...

Instead, look into the Lifelone Learning program.  (withdrawal interest free loan from RRSP, pay it back over 10 years).   The key is to withdraw your $10k per year, to pay for your costs, and use the family income to still contribute to the wife's RRSP and get a tax deduction.   The LLP is actually a tremendous deal for the mature student.

What is OOP?

[daverobev]

Going back to school as a married, mature student has two challenges:

1)  family income is taken into account
2)  your RRSP and TFSA will be taken into account (but not your spouses')

This is from my memory of calculating federal student loan / bursary application when my husband went back to school.  Here, the application for provincial is the same as for federal, so only small differences in approvals.

Because of this, we only "just" could have received a loan because of child care being suddenly deductible from income.  It was not worth the bother...

Instead, look into the Lifelone Learning program.  (withdrawal interest free loan from RRSP, pay it back over 10 years).   The key is to withdraw your $10k per year, to pay for your costs, and use the family income to still contribute to the wife's RRSP and get a tax deduction.   The LLP is actually a tremendous deal for the mature student.

What is OOP?

Out of pocket.

I think it's all changed - for entry next year. Yes, it takes household income, but RRSP etc is exempt. From what people are saying, there would no longer be an asset test - which is the big one for me.

Next year is good because DW will be on mat leave. It's based on prior year, though, but even with household income of $100k it still looks like you get half and half grant:loan. I think it was $10k of each. With lower incomes (which 2017 would be), it means much more grant.

[Goldielocks]

Going back to school as a married, mature student has two challenges:

1)  family income is taken into account
2)  your RRSP and TFSA will be taken into account (but not your spouses')

This is from my memory of calculating federal student loan / bursary application when my husband went back to school.  Here, the application for provincial is the same as for federal, so only small differences in approvals.

Because of this, we only "just" could have received a loan because of child care being suddenly deductible from income.  It was not worth the bother...

Instead, look into the Lifelone Learning program.  (withdrawal interest free loan from RRSP, pay it back over 10 years).   The key is to withdraw your $10k per year, to pay for your costs, and use the family income to still contribute to the wife's RRSP and get a tax deduction.   The LLP is actually a tremendous deal for the mature student.

What is OOP?

Out of pocket.

I think it's all changed - for entry next year. Yes, it takes household income, but RRSP etc is exempt. From what people are saying, there would no longer be an asset test - which is the big one for me.

Next year is good because DW will be on mat leave. It's based on prior year, though, but even with household income of $100k it still looks like you get half and half grant:loan. I think it was $10k of each. With lower incomes (which 2017 would be), it means much more grant.

Interesting!  yes, if you can get a grant, go for it.   I realized several years after taking the LLP, that pulling interest free from your own RRSP is like a free loan to yourself... which (minus grants) is better than a Canada Loan with interest that starts when you graduation.

All in, we made money from the LLP, because I still made a decent salary and our tax deduction for my RRSP contributions was a lot.  (instead of paying cash for DH school, and then reducing my RRSP).  The only net negative is a reduced RRSP contribution room, but we are in danger of having too much money in the RRSP anyway, (forcing a higher tax bracket later)