Higher Education Trends

Canada continued to witness robust growth in international student enrolments in the 2022/2023 academic year, with 468,000 international students enrolled in Canadian post-secondary education. This marked a 16.0 per cent increase from the previous year and represents more than a decade of consistent expansion, with international enrolments rising by nearly 170.0 per cent over the past ten years.

Tuition fees for domestic undergraduate students have increased by 20 per cent since 2013–14, which is below the rate of inflation over this period. This is partly due to provincial tuition freezes. In contrast, tuition fees have doubled for international students (and nearly tripled since the mid-2000s). At the graduate level, tuition fees for international students have also considerably risen.

The share of undergraduate students still enrolled after their first year (known as the persistence rate) jumped during the COVID-19 pandemic. Students who began their studies in the 2019–2020 academic year were more likely to stay in their programs. Although there was a partial correction in the subsequent year, persistence rates remain elevated. Economic and job market uncertainties during the pandemic likely made students more cautious about making significant changes in their education or career path.

The landscape of Canadian PSE enrolment experienced a notable recovery after the pandemic restrictions were lifted. In the academic year 2021–22, there were around 2.2 million students enrolled in Canadian PSE, a 0.9 per cent increase from the year before. We project that the enrolment in PSE will see fast growth in 2023–24 and 2024–25, reaching about 2.4 million students in 2026–27.