Canada Student Loans Program

The Canada Student Loans Program, offered by Human Resources and Skills Development Canada, is a program designed to help students pursuing postsecondary education finance their education. The program helps low-income Canadians through various loans and grants, ensuring that everybody has access to postsecondary education.

The Canada Student Loans Program was started in 1964, and has assisted close to 4 million students with over $15 in loans and grants since its inception. Even though the Canada Student Loans Program is a Canadian federal program, not all provinces and territories participate in the program. Quebec, Nunavut and the Northern Territories have their own Student Loan Programs, which again are financed by the Canadian government.

During the 1964 – 1995 period the student loans were provided by Canadian Banks and financial institutions, to Canadians who qualified to receive financial assistance for a postsecondary education. During this period the government of Canada guaranteed all student loans issued by Canadian financial institutions (if the student defaulted on the student loan the government of Canada had to repay the loan back to the financial institution).

During the 1995 – 2000 period the government of Canada used a so called “risk-sharing” agreement with several Canadian financial institutions, which put the responsibility for the defaulted loans back to the financial institutions, in exchange for a fixed payments from the government of Canada. Since August 2000, the government of Canada directly started financing all Canadian student loans.

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