Court records show Ontario’s ‘serious concerns’ about three career colleges

TORONTO — Ontario government officials who inspected three career colleges found evidence suggesting third parties were completing the coursework — sometimes entire courses in one day — and a few students who couldn’t name their school or program, they alleged in reports filed in court.

Inspection reports for three Academy of Learning locations are among hundreds of pages of documents that make up the record in a court challenge as the schools seek to overturn a government decision that cut off their ability to offer financial aid.

“Inspection findings indicate that AOL Bay is unable to demonstrate that OSAP-funded students are actively participating in the programs they are enrolled in,” the government’s OSAP compliance unit wrote in a September 2025 inspection report for a downtown Toronto location.

“This raises serious concerns about the reliability of the institution’s admissions practices, student identity verification, and the accuracy of academic progression and attendance records.”

The schools deny most of the allegations and also say they have taken the government’s concerns seriously, including already implementing numerous corrective actions.

The three Academy of Learning locations are among 10 that Career Colleges Ontario flagged for the government in January 2025 as having “concerning” levels of growth in applications for the Ontario Student Assistance Program — jumping 500 and 600 per cent in two years — while other schools’ activity was largely flat, the college association said in a letter.

Data obtained by The Canadian Press through a freedom-of-information request found that about 14,800 students at those three Academy of Learning franchise locations received more than $219 million in OSAP grants in 2024-25.

Meanwhile, students at all publicly funded colleges across Ontario qualified for about $385 million in OSAP grants that year, freedom-of-information data shows.

Colleges and Universities Minister Nolan Quinn informed five career colleges, including the three Academy of Learning locations, on May 1 that they would not be OSAP eligible as of Aug. 1. The three schools, which share a parent company, have applied for judicial review of that decision, alleging Quinn did not have the power to predetermine their eligibility for this year and that his decision is unreasonable.

Court records show Quinn’s decision followed inspections last year and earlier this year that inspectors say the schools failed, with the ministry listing similar concerns in both reports. One report covers two sites, as a North York location is a branch campus of Academy of Learning Brampton East.

One student’s account showed all of their quizzes and final exam in their business writing essentials course were completed on the same day, with the final exam taking six minutes, the Brampton inspection report said.

Another Brampton student’s account shows their final exam for a business course was completed on the first day they accessed the course, inspectors wrote. Yet another student viewed all of their business writing essentials modules and completed all quizzes on the same day in less than 15 minutes, inspectors wrote.

The credentials of a student at the North York campus were used to log into their school account from at least 211 IP addresses, inspectors wrote.

At the Bay Street location, 39 out of 42 student files examined by inspectors had IP addresses that were used to access accounts belonging to other students, who were all referred by the same recruiter, the report said.

“This pattern suggests shared login credentials, unauthorized access, and/or co-ordinated activity among users,” the report said.

“While shared networks or communal access points, such as residences or campus locations, could explain IP address overlap, the frequency and concentration of these shared IP addresses within specific community partners is notable.”

The nature of the inspectors’ findings prompted them to drill down further and contact six students, three of whom were available for a phone call.

Interviews revealed “inconsistencies,” including students unable to name their institution, program or courses, students unable to communicate in English and students claiming to attend classes in person despite being enrolled in asynchronous online programs, the inspectors wrote.

The federal government also expressed concerns about the Bay and Brampton locations in September 2025, according to letters sent to the institutions that are also part of the court record.

The government alleged unusually high growth in the amount of financial aid claimants from the schools, that there was evidence that multiple applications were completed by the same person or group, significant increases in loan default rates and that a large amount of people could not be confirmed as qualifying students.

In a February 2026 letter to the province, also in the court record, Career Colleges Ontario said the federal government’s concerns and subsequent investigations led to reduced OSAP application volumes at those schools, but “application activity shifted to other institutions rather than declining.”

“This pattern aligns with complaints received from CCO members indicating that certain schools were using third-party agents who offered to redirect students to other institutions if those institutions would misrepresent or falsely report attendance in order to facilitate continued OSAP disbursement,” executive director Kate Bartz wrote.

None of the findings and allegations from either level of government have been proven in court. The Academy of Learning denies most of the allegations from both levels of government and the ways in which some of their evidence is being interpreted.

Students may not have responded to the federal government’s verification attempts because they believed them to be scam calls, and other students having difficulty answering questions in interviews “can be reasonably attributed to situational and linguistic factors,” the school wrote in response to the government.

The Academy of Learning also offered up, in its response, figures showing their loan default rates to not be high, and it suggested the high growth in applications was due to offering programs relevant to workforce needs.

The schools also wrote to the province to rebut any nefarious assumptions about students’ log-ins from multiple IP address, saying Bell, Rogers and Cogeco customers are assigned dynamic IP addresses.

“The presence of the same IP address among different users does not, by itself, establish misconduct, misrepresentation, or unauthorized activity,” they wrote.

As well, the schools had submitted corrective action plans in response to their failed inspections, showing dozens of actions taken to remedy problems identified by the province.

The Academy of Learning said in a statement that many of the government concerns relate to a historical period that has since been the subject of “extensive regulatory review, corrective action plans, internal reviews, and independent compliance monitoring.”

“Since these concerns were raised, we have put in place significant additional controls across admissions, identity verification, financial aid, and academic participation and progress,” the school wrote in a statement.

“These include two-factor authentication and investigation of unusual login activity. We have co-operated extensively with both reviews and will continue to strengthen our controls wherever issues are identified.”

The instances of unusually rapid completion of courses warrants review, the Academy acknowledged, and said it has implemented additional monitoring of files before exam codes are issued.

“It’s also important to note that time spent in our online learning platform is not, on its own, a complete measure of a student’s learning,” the Academy said in its statement.

“Students learn in different ways, some programs include third-party learning materials, and many students download textbooks and course materials to study off-line before completing their assessments. A short period of online activity or a quick assessment does not by itself mean the required learning did not take place.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 2, 2026.

Allison Jones, The Canadian Press