Free higher education: not a handout but an investment in Canada’s future

Canada has long treated education as a pathway to opportunity, yet that principle becomes less convincing when students must take on significant financial burdens to obtain a university or college degree. Comparative evidence from countries that have adopted tuition free or nearly tuition free higher education shows that Canada has another option. It should seriously consider following their lead.

The international experience is not theoretical. Denmark, Finland, Norway and Sweden provide tuition free public higher education to domestic students, while Germany has maintained very low tuition costs at public institutions. The OECD classifies these countries among systems that combine low or no tuition with substantial public financial support.

These models demonstrate an important principle: higher education can be treated as a public investment rather than primarily as a private expense. Students still face living costs, but removing tuition substantially lowers the financial barrier to entering and completing postsecondary education. In Nordic countries, public support also helps students manage those living expenses, demonstrating that affordability requires more than simply eliminating a tuition bill.

Canada currently follows a different path. According to the OECD, Canadian public institutions charge substantially higher tuition than countries such as Germany and the Nordic states. Canada is grouped among countries with relatively high tuition and limited public financial support, with fewer than 40 per cent of students receiving public grants or scholarships.

That approach deserves reconsideration. A society increasingly dependent on skilled workers, technological innovation and specialized knowledge cannot afford to make education harder to access because of family income. Tuition costs can influence students’ choices, discourage some from pursuing further education and leave graduates beginning their careers with financial obligations.

Critics will rightly ask how Canada could afford free college and university. The answer is that free tuition is not free education. Governments would have to replace tuition revenue with public funding, requiring careful planning and accountability. Canada could begin by eliminating tuition at public colleges and universities for domestic students, protecting institutional quality through stable funding and expanding support for students with significant living expenses.

There is also a lesson in what successful countries do not do. They do not simply abolish tuition and walk away. Their systems rely on sustained public investment and, in many cases, taxation that helps finance higher education. The OECD notes that countries with no tuition fees generally provide generous public subsidies, while graduates contribute more through taxes later in life.

Canada should therefore stop asking whether it can afford free higher education and begin asking whether it can afford not to have it. Education strengthens the economy, expands opportunity and builds the skilled workforce Canada needs. If other advanced countries have demonstrated that tuition free higher education can be sustained through public investment, Canada should have the ambition to build a model of its own.

Free college and university should not be viewed as a handout. It should be understood as an investment in Canada’s future.

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