Despite facing the highest average university tuition in Canada, Ontario students often end up paying less than peers across the country because of the many loans, grants, rebates and tax credits that are available, said MPP Reza Moridi, Ontario’s minister of training, colleges and universities.

Moridi was commenting Wednesday on a report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives this week that slammed Ontario for the highest average tuition in the country at $8,474 for full-time undergraduate students this year.

“People always look at the gross price, but when you deduct all the grants and assistance programs, like the 30 per cent discount for students from families earning less than $160,000 a year, you come to the net tuition and, actually, we are one of the lowest.

“Also, if your student debt goes beyond $7,300 a year, the government forgives it,” said Moridi, a nuclear physicist, engineer and former university instructor who has taught at university in Canada, England, Michigan and Fiji.

A separate study released last week by Canadian research group Higher Education Strategy Associates compared the net tuition paid by students across Canada for several programs and found that, in many cases, Ontario students facing the highest “sticker price” would end up paying among the lowest actual tuition, after grants, loans and tax credits were factored in.

For example, an unmarried Ontario anthropology student living away from home, whose family income is $120,000 does face the highest anthropology tuition in the country — $6,957 — the report said, but after the Ontario tuition rebate of $1,780 and an eventual tax credit of $2,163, that student’s net cost would be $3,014, the fourth-lowest in the country.

Still, some program tuitions are so high in Ontario, like chemical engineering at $11,157, that the report noted even with financial help, a student living at home whose family income is $80,000 still would pay the highest net tuition for such a program in Canada.

Moridi also said his government will be looking to approve “up to three new satellite campuses” this year. The deadline for proposals from universities and colleges is Sept. 26 and the government had received 27 notices of intent this spring from institutions planning to apply to expand.