Student aid across Canada is delivered in “piecemeal, patchwork systems” from province to province that do little to guarantee equity among students, says a new report by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives (CCPA).

The most complex system of all is in Ontario, where there are 94 possible outcomes involved in an undergraduate student’s application — nearly twice as many as any other province, said the report called “It’s Complicated; An Interprovincial Comparison of Student Financial Aid,” released Thursday.

“The murky realm of student financial aid remains largely a mystery to both students and their families,” said author Jordan MacLaren, a graduate student at Carleton University, who called it “complex to the point of being nonsensical.”

The federal government covers about 60 per cent of a student’s aid and the provinces cover about 40 per cent, but some provinces, including Ontario and Alberta, apply slightly different rules to who qualifies and how much they expect parents to kick in “and Ontario squeezes families a little tighter,” said MacLaren. She also criticized Queen’s Park for offering two “boutique” assistance programs — a tuition rebate and a grant for low-income students — that she said often claw back dollars from each other.

“It raises the question, are we making good use of public finds with all this duplication and inequality?” asked MacLaren. “Why not just lower tuition rather than create systems where a student can fall through the cracks?”

Yet part of what boosted Ontario’s “complexity score” are three grant programs that provide over $800 million in student aid, said Zak Paget, spokesman for MPP Reza Moridi, the province’s new minister of training, colleges and universities. “About 70 cents of every dollar that Ontario provided in student assistance last year was non-repayable due to these generous grant programs,” said Paget, noting the government will launch two student-friendly videos later this summer to explain applying for the Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) and also repayment.

Paget also noted Ontario students need not apply separately for multiple bursaries, grants or loans because once they apply, they are automatically considered for the various options open to them. He said Ontario provides students with an online “aid estimator” that identifies roughly how much the student can expect.

Still, a proper student loan guide for Ontario students is sorely needed, said Jen Carter, president of the Ontario Undergraduate Students’ Alliance, who recalled grappling with OSAP as an undergraduate at Western University. The CCPA report found only Ontario, Nova Scotia and Newfoundland do not offer a student loan guide.

“It’s very difficult to get information and once you’ve submitted your application online you cannot go back and change it,” said Carter, who needed to do that after her father abruptly lost his job.

“The goal is to make sure we empower students to know when and where they can get their questions answered.”