I WAS looking at 14,000. However, that has gone down, as I have been out of school for a bit. When I was given OSAP, I was told that I would have to pay back a maximum of 7,000$ a year, which totalled 14,000. I went to College, though...so I don't know if that is any different. I certainly received much more than 14,000$ in OSAP, it was just "forgiven". It was my son that saved me, because I had a dependant, I had to pay less.

It may be worth it to discuss with your school's financial aid department, what is available for forgiveness. Thats how I found out about my forgiveness.

Yeah it's still $7000 of debt per 2 semesters. The thing is though that so far I've been taking a summer semester as well, and doing a reduced courseload (so instead of the full 5 courses I tend to take about 3.5 during the regular year and one in the summer - still full-time, but just less overwhelming) so it will take me longer to finish. So more semesters than if I just did it all at once. I think it will take me like 5 years to finish, at about $10 000 per year. That's not exact, because I know for example I'm not going to be doing summer school this next go around because I'll have a newborn, but yeah I'm looking at approx. $50 000 in debt.

I think in the end it will be worth it, because as of right now if I were to go into the workforce with only my highschool I probably wouldn't get a job I wanted and I probably wouldn't make more than minimum wage... So I figure, even worst case scenario I will make more money once I graduate and then with the debt payments I'll lose the extra income and break even... But at least I will have a steady job, with benefits, that I hopefully like and have at least the beginnings of a career, ya know? So I do think it will be worth it.
Plus I'm also considering grad school... I have to look into my payment options for that but I'm hoping I could do it without any extra debt...

OMG, I'm so longwinded! LMAO! Sorry folks.

I would definatly say its worth it! As someone who has gone through it already, and lived on tight budgets and what-not, the aftermath has been great. It's not just the money aspect, its the satisfaction of being involved in a career that you truly enjoy doing. That does wonders for mental heatlh, trust me! What feild are you going into, again?

As for grad-school. In my field, most people are able to do it part time. Many Universities offer part-time studies, so we can work while we learn. It really helps cut the costs!

I am sure you have probably done this already...but at the financial aid departments, they will give you as list of bursaries/scholarships you can apply for, to help ease the cost. Where I went to school, you had to specifically ask for it (they didn't just hand this info out to everyone). I applied for as many as I can. Some of them are just 500-1,000$, but it makes a difference in the long run, I think.

Yeah I was thinking of grad school part-time while working. Or, the other option is to just do it fulltime, and then I would have a low income still and possibly get some of the loan forgiven. I should look more into that.

I haven't really looked into scholarships and bursaries because I figure then OSAP will just consider them income and I could lose some OSAP... so why bother, ya know? I guess though that my income is probably low enough that I could have more income and still get the same amount of OSAP, although I'm not sure.