OSAP --> Dental School

[Guest Yeoman]

Hi all,

 

I was just wondering if anyone knows if OSAP gives loans after undergraduate, (for dental students). And if yes, how much.

 

What are some ways people finance ~ $ 100,000 over the next 4 years to study dentistry?

 

Thanks

[juba]

osap gives max 7 grand per year.

[human instinct]

are you sure its 7 grand? I heard something like 10 grand or does it vary depending on individual's prior loan situation?

[Contach]

are you sure its 7 grand? I heard something like 10 grand....

 

I may have said 10grand at some point. I could very well be wrong.... it was a guess on my part. sorry

[juba]

I talked to numerous dental students at schools in the US and everyone said the same thing 7 grand CAD/year.

[simba]

If you attend a canadian D-school, you can get more, no?

[simba]

So has any current D-school student from Ontario been able to get more than 10K per year from OSAP?

[rocky222]

The way OSAP works is that it first assesses your financial need based on your expected tuition and living allowance/costs for the study period. Given the exorbitant cost in attending dental school in Ontario, you can be expected to be allotted the maximum amount. The maximum amount increases from year to year but I believe this year it was $13,500 - $14,500 (not too sure, but it's probably close to that).

 

Next, they'll start to reduce that amount you're entitled to by whatever contributions they expect you to make to your education. They use some formulaic approach to generate the expected contribution from the money you earned working during summers/during the academic year. If you've been out of highschool for less than four years, your parents will be expected to contribute. If they make quite a bit of money, then your OSAP entitlement can be drastically reduced. The amount can also be reduced by the possession of assets too. For example, if you own a car, they will likely expect for you to sell it to pay for school. Same goes for investments (stocks, mutual funds, etc).

 

So since most dental students will be out of highschool for four years, they are considered independents for OSAP purposes. Thus, parental contributions are not expected and the only thing (unless you have some pricey assets to your name) that will reduce the maximum funding is the contribution that stems from your own income. I called and talked to an OSAP councilor back a number of years ago and I think the guideline was that for every $4000-5000 earned, you were expected to save and contribute $1000 (or something like that). Needless to say, you won't have time to work and make much money, thus you should be entitled to something very close to the max amount (at least well over $10,000).

 

Now, the government has this new grant program called OSOG (Ontario Student Opportunity Grant) which reduces the amount you'll actually have to pay back. And this amount is capped at $7,000. Hypothetically, if you received $11,000 in OSAP next year, $4,000 will get written off as a bursary so you'll only end up paying back $7,000 when you graduate.

 

This only covers the situation when you are an Ontario resident attending school in Ontario (or anywhere else in Canada). Ontario residents attending school in the States or anywhere else abroad will not be permitted to the same maximum amounts that I've outlined above. But if you're going to an Ontario school, I'd see no reason why you wouldn't be able to get well over $10,000/yr.

[daryn]

If they have assessed you to have sufficient difficulty, they will give you a loan. The maximum loan anyone can get for one year depends on the number of weeks of school, which gets multiplied by some value that is published on the OSAP site (I found it at one point). It definitely can be more than 10000. The maximum loan you can get depends on your financial need.