Billions for corporations, cuts for students: the truth about Ontario’s education crisis and how we’re sleepwalking into economic crisis.

For decades, Ontario’s public colleges have been a place where Ontarians could get a real education: apprenticeships, diplomas, and career training that opened doors for workers, families, and our communities. Public education at it’s barest roots is an act of economic liberation, allowing working class families the ability to seek better employment and participate within our local economies. In fact, the public education system acts as an enormous economic draw and anchor specifically to Northern Ontario – historically, it attracted and kept Ontarian youth in the North where they were able to settle and contribute to the economy of Northern Ontario. Our modern public college system was essentially established in the 1960’s to combat the loss of valuable workers and students to America; having seen the creation of multiple colleges and universities across Ontario during that time.

But now – today’s story is a provincial crisis in the making that few in power are being vocal about, and very few in public actually know about.

Those same colleges are being deliberately starved of funding. Instead of this province properly supporting them, the Ontario government is side-stepping them and pouring billions into short, 6-12 week training courses designed by private corporations. These programs are being sold as “skills for jobs” but in reality, it’s a way of shifting public money – our tax dollars, mind you – into private coffers, while leaving Ontarian youth with less education, fewer protections, and even fewer opportunities.

This isn’t an accident. It’s not a slip of a finger in a spreadsheet by some drooling accountant at Queen’s Park.

It’s a political choice, and it’s a dangerous one that is set to collapse our public education system and worsen poverty in Northern Ontario.

So – how the fuck did we get here?

In 2019, Doug Ford’s government split the Ministry of Training, Colleges, and Universities into two; one for public colleges and universities, and a newly-created “Ministry of Labour, Training and Skills Development.” This new ministry is now a launching pad for the Skills Development Fund (SDF) – an absolutely massive honeypot of public cash that is earmarked not to go towards public education but instead goes towards funding short training project operated by private companies.

Literally fistfuls of public cash for private corporations to overstep public education.

Basically Ford’s stance is socialism for corporations (at least the ones that grease Ford’s palms), and bootstraps and shoe-leather for students, families and workers.

Since 2020, the Ford government has committed up to $2.5B to this fund. That’s more than enough to cover the gap in funding that experts are saying that our colleges need just to function properly.

Meanwhile – at the same time, we are seeing public funding for colleges being cut down to the marrow; the province now covers only 25% of their operating costs, while other provinces are committing to 60%. What is the result? Since 2022, over 650 programs have been cut, and over 10,000 workers have been laid off. Programs that feed into Ontario’s sensitive industries like tourism have been ravaged – at a time when this nation is reeling against a regime in Washington that utilizes a hostile tariff policy from the Jacksonian era – our current stance is delusional. We proudly scream “Elbows up”, yet we currently gut the very public colleges that will feed more workers into industries that we require to counteract the economic realities we face from America.

Funding our public colleges is how we fight against America’s hellbent tax-and-tariff policies.

You want to know how much money has been cashed in by private interests?
Here’s a few big winners:

But Ontario doesn’t need to share that same fate, and we don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. It just needs to properly fund the colleges we already have. That means restoring core funding so colleges can run full, high-quality programs, ensure that any short training programs are complements and not replacements, and that transparency is paramount when public money even comes within walking distance of a private company.

Remember – public education is a public good. It belongs to all of us, not just those in favourable tax brackets.

So, the bottom line is this. Ontario’s government want you to believe that starving colleges are a result of an unstable system – that support and faculty workers demand too much – while taking millions of your own money and choking private interests with it. It’s all about shifting public dollars into private pockets, while weakening one of the most important public institutions we have – at a time when we have to build up Ontario the most.

The warning signs are already here. Campuses are closing, and colleges will be declaring insolvency.

But Ontario still has time to choose another path. But only if we make noise, share the truth, and fight against the Ford government to demand that public money goes back to where it belongs: into public colleges, serving both student and community, not feeding private profit margins and corporate donor bottom lines.