OSAP and Medical School

[brady23]

How much money would you need to have in assets and in earnings, before OSAP claws back?

For example, I know the max amount you can earn from OSAP is about $19000 for 2nd year students, and my total estimated costs are $41000.

Does this mean you can have $22000 in assets and earnings before your OSAP decreases?

[jlkhhylyiluh6]

Ive declared over $25,000 in a TFSA and it didnt affect OSAP at all. I think theyre much more forgiving of med students because they know youll pay it back.

[ralk]

11 hours ago, brady23 said:

How much money would you need to have in assets and in earnings, before OSAP claws back?

For example, I know the max amount you can earn from OSAP is about $19000 for 2nd year students, and my total estimated costs are $41000.

Does this mean you can have $22000 in assets and earnings before your OSAP decreases?

Not necessarily. Assets they may be forgiving on, but income definitely affects OSAP. I had around $12-14k in earnings the year before my first year of medical school and while it didn't claw back my OSAP by much, it did affect the final value. Earnings in subsequent years, which were under $5k, didn't make a difference.

In general, any offset from OSAP due to income will be less than that income provides, so there's always a benefit to making more money, it's just that the benefit gets diminished by those OSAP offsets. At some income levels, every additional dollar earned can result in a reduction in OSAP payments of about 50 cents and last time I ran the numbers on the OSAP estimator, that level started around the $15k mark (may have changed since then). Generally speaking, in medical school there's no point making money for money's sake because of these OSAP offsets. That time is better spent exploring and improving career options. However, if what you'd be doing anyway nets you some additional income incidentally, don't refuse it, because you'll still come out ahead financially.

[la marzocco]

13 minutes ago, ralk said:

Not necessarily. Assets they may be forgiving on, but income definitely affects OSAP. I had around $12-14k in earnings the year before my first year of medical school and while it didn't claw back my OSAP by much, it did affect the final value. Earnings in subsequent years, which were under $5k, didn't make a difference.

In general, any offset from OSAP due to income will be less than that income provides, so there's always a benefit to making more money, it's just that the benefit gets diminished by those OSAP offsets. At some income levels, every additional dollar earned can result in a reduction in OSAP payments of about 50 cents and last time I ran the numbers on the OSAP estimator, that level started around the $15k mark (may have changed since then). Generally speaking, in medical school there's no point making money for money's sake because of these OSAP offsets. That time is better spent exploring and improving career options. However, if what you'd be doing anyway nets you some additional income incidentally, don't refuse it, because you'll still come out ahead financially.

This is consistent with my recent experience with OSAP. I had to true up my income as my initial submission was an estimate. Although, I did notice that although the final OSAP amount didn't budge much, the mix between grants and loans was definitely affected. I think asset holdings have a much lesser impact, simply because you have to check off "out of secondary school for more than 4 years" and you are considered more of an independent economic entity so you shouldn't be ding-ed for having some assets. Asset holdings have a much higher impact when you're in undergrad I believe - where you are considered a dependant on your parents.

Sidebar: I am incredibly happy that OSAP started allowing Ontario residents studying out of province to be eligible - this wasn't the case previously.