I believe that in essence what the budget and this act will do is...the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation will no longer exist after January 5, 2010. In August, or thereabouts, of 2009, a new grant will come into effect. That grant will be funded up to $350 million, and growing over time, so that four years after 2009, in 2013, the grant will exceed the current amount of non-repayable assistance that is provided to students across Canada. The new grant will go to about 245,000 students, 100,000 more students than are currently receiving non-repayable assistance through the current scholarship bursaries that are given out.
The new grant will be provided to students from lower-income families at a higher amount than those from middle-income families, because they are more in need of assistance. It will be given out over a monthly allocation to make sure they know how much they will receive in a predictable fashion throughout their period of study. This means the previous grants being offered by the federal government, which were only offered to first-year students attending their first year of college or university, will now apply throughout every year of study, so they're getting more money over more time and in a more predictable fashion.