Whatever Happened to Free Tuition?

Free tuition isn’t radical. It’s doable. It’s overdue.

In just a few short years, three major national social programs—child care, dental care, and pharmacare—have leapt from political promise to policy reality. It’s a remarkable run. Child care and pharmacare had been simmering on the back burner for decades, widely acknowledged as essential but needlessly delayed. Dental care, on the other hand, wasn’t even part of the main course until the NDP slipped it into their 2019 platform. Now it’s a heavily used, though still incomplete, federal social program. That kind of speed is rare in Canadian politics—and worth celebrating.

But as these programs took centre stage, something else quietly slipped off it: the idea of post-secondary education as a universal, fully-funded public good. (That’s “public good” in the everyday sense, not the economics textbook one.) 

Not so long ago, the idea seemed to have real traction. In 2012, more than 200,000 students in Quebec walked out in protest against tuition hikes during the Maple Spring strike, demanding free education instead. In 2017, Kathleen Wynne’s Liberal government in Ontario introduced the Ontario Student Grant, promising tuition coverage for low-income students. By 2019, the Green Party of Canada featured free tuition nationally as a key plank of its platform, while the NDP pledged steps toward free tuition. And all through the 2010s, the Canadian Federation of Students staged National Days of Action to press the issue.

Then—relative quiet. Students haven’t stopped organizing, but the volume is noticeably lower. In their 2025 federal election platform, the Greens have emphasized a phased-in approach in contrast to their more ambitious call six years back. And curiously, the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternative (CCPA), appears to have ommitted free post-secondary education as an explicit goal in its 2025 Alternative Federal Budget. In contrast, its 2024 document called for “a nation-wide transition to a universal and tuition-free post-secondary system.” 

Yet, introducing free post-secondary education in Canada is still a worthwhile—in fact, necessary—political project. For one, even if calls for free tuition are somewhat harder to hear today, surveys show that students continue to struggle with financial costs associated with higher education. It’s also surprisingly cheap to implement. Especially so when considering the current political mood pushing for far greater public funds to go towards a dubious military expansion. Add to all this the fact that dozens of countries around the world—many of them so-called “like-minded” peers—have already pulled it off. 

Free tuition isn’t radical. It’s doable. It’s overdue. The moment might not feel ripe. But the case is as strong as ever. It’s time we started turning up the pressure once again.

Canada promised free post-secondary education

When the federal government introduced the Early Learning and Child Care (ELCC) program in 2021, it plugged a long-standing hole in Canada’s education system. The promise of $10-a-day child care is a big deal—and will likely go down as one of Justin Trudeau’s most significant legacies. In fact, one of the many benefits of high quality child care is that it increases the likelihood children will eventually pursue post-secondary education.

But while the gap at the early end of the education system is finally getting the attention it deserves, the gap at the other end has been neglected. It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Almost 50 years ago, Canada signed the 1976 International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, committing to higher education that is “equally accessible to all” and “in particular by the progressive introduction of free education.”

Today, yes, we have government subsidies for colleges and universities. Yes, there are grants and loans aimed at students from low-income families. But half a century later, isn’t it time Canada fully lived up to that commitment?

Countries like Denmark, Finland, Iceland, and Sweden treat post-secondary education as a fully-funded public good for their own citizens as well as those from the European Union. Germany goes even further, offering it free of charge to all students—including ones from outside the EU (though some administrative fees apply). Latin American nations like Argentina, Brazil, Cuba, and Uruguay have made university free at public institutions. Even Argentina’s current right wing president, Javier Milei—who’s been slashing a range of public services —hasn’t yet revoked free tuition, a point of civic pride in the country.

Many other countries, such as France, heavily subsidize higher education, with annual fees in the low hundreds of euros. The idea is simple: access to education shouldn’t depend on your bank account. 

A public service with a private price tag

In Canada, most post-secondary institutions are public, heavily funded through taxes. But students still pay tuition—effectively, a flat user fee that hits lower-income families harder. That’s the definition of regressive: everyone pays the same, but it costs some people more, relatively speaking.

To offset this inherent unfairness, governments offer grants, bursaries, and loans. But the support is patchy and inconsistent. Applications can be burdensome. Funding can disappear from one year to the next. And in some cases, it gets clawed back—like in the case of Samuel Bonne, who lost a $15,000 grant while attending the University of Toronto when he couldn’t provide proof of income documents for his father, who worked in Kenya.

And then there’s debt. A lot of it. Roughly a third of college students and nearly half of university undergraduates leave school owing the government money—an average of $32,000 in student loans. Factor in credit cards and private loans, and that number goes up by about ten percentage points. 

And if you want to become a doctor? Expect to graduate with an average of $84,000 in education-related debt—and another $80,000 in personal expenses. Meanwhile, your Swedish and German counterparts would pay next to nothing in terms of tuition.

This kind of debt isn’t just a personal burden, affecting individual credit scores. It also drags down the entire economy. It delays home ownership. It discourages entrepreneurship. It even distorts the job market: new doctors might choose lucrative specialties over lower-paying but critically needed roles in family medicine, simply to keep up with their loan repayments.

A better path forward

Rather than patching holes with a mix of grants and loans, we should treat post-secondary education as a fully-funded public good. Yes, it would cost money. But Canada is a very wealthy country, ranked among the world’s ten largest economies. Canada’s GDP per capita is comparable to that of Sweden and Germany—both of whom offer virtually free tuition. We can afford it. 

So what would it cost? In 2019, the Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO) assessed the Green Party’s plan to eliminate tuition, forgive some federal student debt and get rid of obsolete education-related tax credits. The net cost for 2020–21 was estimated at $16.5 billion, with the bulk—$10.6 billion—covering tuition. By 2025–26, the annual tuition coverage would fall to $9.5 billion, and climb to around $10 billion by 2028–29.

Of course, this PBO estimate is a few years old now, and any such calculation comes with various caveats and shortcomings. For example, some provincial and territorial governments might decide to cut funding to post-secondary institutions further in response to increased federal funding. And those governments that already more heavily subsidize tuition would likely object to receiving less federal support than their less-subsidizing counterparts. Obviously, federal-provincial discussions could easily become complicated, but that is the nature of all bilateral funding agreements on health and social programs that Ottawa signs with provinces and territories.

Now, consider that the federal government has recently proposed doubling the military’s annual budget from $40 billion to nearly $80 billion over the next few years. Even if the PBO estimate of $9.5 billion for 2025-26 were increased by more than a quarter to $12 billion to account for various uncertainties, free tuition would only cost about 30% of just the planned increase to the military’s budget.

Who needs free tuition?

Critics argue that free tuition is regressive because it benefits higher income groups—who are heavily represented in post-secondary institutions and don’t really need the help—along with lower income groups. But so does the status quo. As noted, tuition is charged at a flat rate, meaning it consumes a larger share of income for low-income families, though this is clumsily mitigated through the grants and loans patchwork.

Some of these critics propose limiting free tuition to students in lower income groups. That sounds reasonable in theory. But in practice, many middle- and even upper-middle-income families also struggle with the cost of post-secondary education. Between tuition, books, housing, and other living expenses, total annual university costs can easily reach $25,000–$30,000 per child—and multiples of that for families with more than one child seeking higher education. 

For a large share of Canadian families—many of whom are already stretched thin by high housing costs and incomes that haven't kept pace with the rising cost of living—this represents a major financial burden. Even with support from the federal Canada Education Savings Grant (CESG), families need to contribute the full $50,000 lifetime maximum to an RESP and achieve strong investment returns—essentially doubling their principal—to cover university costs for each child. While this might be feasible for some, it’s far from guaranteed for the average household, especially given recent market volatility, varying levels of financial literacy, and unequal abilities to save.

This is reflected in government data, which shows that the top 20% of families by income hold nearly seven times more in RESPs than the bottom 20%. But even when compared to families in the fourth quintile, meaning those who fall between the 60th and 80th percentiles of the the national income distribution—what we might colloquially refer to as the upper middle class—the top 20% still held twice as much in their respective RESPs.

The effects of undersaving for post-secondary education are captured in student surveys. A 2024 TD Bank commissioned survey found that 65% of post-secondary students in Canada were “financially unstable”. In the prairies region, this figure jumped to 71%. And some 45% across the country said they were falling short on food and housing costs. Another survey revealed that three quarters of post-secondary students find it “very hard” to afford their education. And over two-fifths are of the view that financial struggles affect their academic performance.

The financial burden of post-secondary education extends well beyond the lowest income brackets to account for a large majority of Canadian families. Consequently, any free tuition initiative shouldn’t be restricted only to those towards the bottom of the income scale.

Universality matters

Fully-funded universal programs have staying power. They build broad public support and become politically untouchable, making them much harder to erode or dismantle. They draw a firm red line that governments hesitate to cross. 

Canadian public health care is a case in point, largely withstanding Conservative governments that are hostile to public services—precisely because the system serves everyone and is deeply embedded in our national identity. We’re already seeing a similar dynamic emerge with the nascent universal pharmacare program: after voting against its creation and pledging to dismantle it, Conservative leader Pierre Poilevre did an about-face just ahead of the federal election campaign, saying he would actually maintain it.

Targeted programs, by contrast, lack the same resilience. Without universal access, there’s no clear line in the sand. And when people are excluded from a benefit, they’re far less likely to rally in its defence. This explains, at least partly, how Wynne’s targeted free tuition program in Ontario was so easily dismantled by Doug Ford.

More broadly, as we've seen with post-secondary education in Canada, treating it as a public service with a private price tag has allowed governments in most provinces to get away with gradually reducing funding and allowing tuition to creep up. 

Between 1980 and 1998, public funding for universities dropped from 74% of revenues to just 55%, while tuition fees rose steadily. In most provinces, undergraduate fees more than doubled through the 1990s; in Alberta, they tripled. Even in Ontario, which was governed by the nominally socialist NDP government under Bob Rae between 1990 and 1995, tuition fees increased drastically. 

Making post-secondary education free and universal would lock it in as a public good—protected by law, popular support, and long-term political viability.

Free tuition isn’t a silver bullet—it’s a smart investment in Canada’s future

Free tuition alone won’t fix every big issue confronting post-secondary education. Students will still face significant housing, food, and other living costs. Universities might still require additional funding to offset the decrease in international student fees, expand enrollment, support research, and improve working conditions for precarious, underpaid sessional instructors. 

Moreover, free tuition won’t automatically close participation gaps. Norway’s experience shows that despite free tuition, students whose parents lack post-secondary credentials are much less likely to pursue higher education themselves. Were this pattern to emerge in Canada under free tuition, it would mean that other interventions—like mentorship, tailored academic support in K-12 and strong early childhood education (already well underway in Canada)—are also needed to level the playing field in the years leading up to post-secondary studies.

Universal free tuition is an investment in people—and in Canada’s future. Like child care, pharmacare, and dental care, it may once have seemed unrealistic. But times are changing. With students and institutions alike facing mounting pressures, and with international examples showing what’s possible, it’s time for Canada to take the next step and make post-secondary education truly public—free, universal, and accessible to all.