A recent study by the Canadian think tank, the Fraser Institute, found that higher university subsidies do not necessarily lead to a better-educated population. The study revealed that the governments of Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan, which consistently spend the most on their universities, ranked 10th and 8th, respectively, in terms of educational attainment of a Bachelor’s degree or above.
Ontario, which contributed the least amount of money to universities, ranked first with almost 30 percent of the population having a Bachelor’s degree or higher. This stands in contrast to Newfoundland’s 16.6 percent and Sakatchewan’s 20.5 percent.
The study suggested that one explanation for the disparity between funding and degree attainment is interprovincial migration. University students may be educated and funded in one province and then move to another after graduation, effectively transferring the provincial investment with them.
During the 2021-2022 school year, Canadian universities educated more than 1 million full-time and 250,000 part-time students at a cost exceeding $46 billion, with the largest source of funding coming from provincial governments.
The study also pointed out that migration applies to all provinces, not just high-spending ones. It found that the provinces with the highest amount of interprovincial immigration between 2000 and 2020 were Alberta and British Columbia, while provinces like New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland & Labrador, and others experienced higher outflows than inflows of graduates.