TORONTO - There's more than $1 billion in new money outlined in Ontario's budget for education, but critics say the $390 million for post-secondary institutions does little for cash-starved students.

About half of the post-secondary funding will help universities address immediate costs, a third will help colleges and universities with infrastructure spending, and the rest will go to training centres.

The government also revealed that new funding announced in Monday's federal budget for post-secondary education will go toward funding the province's existing $6.2-billion, multi-year Reaching Higher program and won't supplement its current plans.

That news, coupled with no new money in the government's $91.2 billion budget to cut or freeze tuition fees, was bound to disappoint students.

In talking about the challenges of addressing so many of the province's needs without running a deficit, Finance Minister Greg Sorbara said: "I've had to say no so many more times than I've been able to say yes.''

But New Democrat Leader Howard Hampton said the Liberal government showed it's out of touch by not addressing the needs of students by cutting or freezing tuition fees.

"There are lots of students who are qualified to get into university, want to get into university, but couldn't afford a $28,000 debt load, they can't take on that amount of economic risk,'' Hampton said.

"That's another example of how this budget fails working families, saying it's OK, it's acceptable, it's not a bad thing for university students to take on (so much) debt.''

While there's an additional $781 million in the budget for elementary and secondary school boards to spend this coming year, it came as no surprise and was previously announced Monday by Education Minister Kathleen Wynne.

The Grants for Student Needs funding goes up this school year by about 4.5 per cent to $18.3 billion, and is up 17 per cent since the 2003-04 year.

Funding for French-language school boards is going up by $73.5 million to more than $1 billion.

The new money means the government will be spending about 22 cents of every dollar on education in the coming school year, of which 15 cents goes to elementary and secondary school education -- about $9,400 per student.

"Our schools are strong and they're going to be stronger still,'' Sorbara said.

Special projects the government is funding in elementary and secondary schools include:

  • Training teachers, principals and vice-principals on addressing bullying, at a combined cost of about $5.7 million.
  • Launching the Aboriginal Education Strategy to improve achievement by First Nations, Inuit, and Metis students, at a cost of $13 million.
  • A budget of $4 million for school boards to buy arts materials and musical instruments.
  •  Increased funding for French as a Second Language education, as part of the Canada-Ontario Official Languages in Education agreement.