Who pays for a university education?

There’s no doubt that university pays off for those who graduate with a degree. Studies have shown that bachelor’s degree graduates earn about a half-million dollars more than their counterparts with a high school diploma over a 15-year follow-up period (roughly between the ages of 30 and 45).

This fall, students starting or returning to university in a bachelor program will pay, on average, $6,834 thousand for the academic year, up 2.6% from a year earlier. Bachelor students in Nova Scotia will be paying the highest fees ($9,328) this school year, while those in Quebec will pay the lowest fees ($3,359).

However, tuition fees accounted for just over one-quarter of total university revenue (28.8%) in 2020/2021, the most recent year for which data are available, up from just over one-fifth (21.5%) a decade earlier. Over one-third (37%) of the total tuition paid in 2019/2020 came from international students, who paid three times more than their Canadian-born counterparts, on average. Approximately one in six (17.1%) students attending university in Canada in 2019/2020 were international students.

Provincial funding remained the major source of income for universities in 2020/2021, making up $15.1 billion or 32.5% of total revenue. This was down from 36.7% in 2019/2020.

The federal government increased their funding to help support universities during the pandemic, with grants totalling $5.3 billion. This accounted for 11.4% of the total revenue of all universities in 2020/2021, compared with $4.2 billion (or 10.3%) of total revenue in 2019/2020.

Revenue from the sale of services and products, predominantly revenues from residences and other auxiliary services, accounted for 3.5% of the total revenue of Canadian universities in 2020/2021. This was down from 7.6% a year earlier, prior to the pandemic.

Parents often help pay for a university education, with over two-thirds (69%) of Canadian children younger than  18 years having savings set aside for their postsecondary education in 2020.

University costs can also be funded by scholarships, grants and bursaries, with over half (56%) of graduates in 2018 having received supplemental funding over the course of their studies.