Ontario universities still most expensive despite PCs' cut and cap

By Tom Parkin

February 6th, 2026

BURLINGTON, ON

Skyrocketing average tuition under the Ontario Liberals helped Ford PCs win in 2018.

Canadian average tuition, 2006/07 to 2025/26

Ontario still has the highest average university tuition in Canada thanks to the Ontario Liberals, though a multi-year freeze has cut tuition by 17 per cent since they were defeated in 2018.

By the time the Ontario Liberals were defeated, four years of average tuition for a Canadian student cost nearly $40,000, up from about $26,000 in 2006/07, a 40 per cent increase.

The Ford PCs ended their freeze last week, allowing tuition to rise two per cent in each of the next three years.

Canadian average tuition rose 40% under Ontario Liberals

That 40 per cent increase increased the average Ontario university tuition cost by $2,642 a year in inflation-adjusted dollars. In the same period, annual tuition in Quebec rose $630, dropped $118 in Alberta, and in BC rose by $11.

The Ontario Liberals’ skyrocketing tuition helped Doug Ford into the premier’s office when his PCs highlighted it with a contrasting pledge to cut tuition 10 per cent, then cap it.

Ontario universities were already increasing revenue and expanding significantly on fees from international students. In the nine years from 2010/11 to 2018/19, the number of international students at Ontario universities increased by about 45,000, jumping from 35,000 to 80,000. The Ford PCs added 31,000 more international students in the next five years, reaching 111,000 in 2023/24.

But that international student revenue stream has now been throttled by the federal Liberals, who cut the number of visas available for temporary workers and students.

International students

With foreign student revenue now cut back, the Ford PCs last week ended its tuition freeze. It was a move several Ontario Liberals were quick to complain about, though none mentioned their role in creating the crisis.

Space for a new stance on international students

The sudden reversal on tuition policy can be an opening to a new public debate on the right way to draw international students to Ontario universities. Canadians rightly disliked a student visa system that commodified a path to Canadian citizenship. But simply cutting international students, rather than fixing the problem, throws out the baby with the bathwater

Ontario’s excellent universities are attractive to foreign students, who are willing to pay for an excellent education. Surely the UK., US or France would not stand in the way of Cambridge, Harvard or Le Sorbonne admitting full-freight students who help expand the educational excellence that benefits domestic students and the domestic economy.

Strong universities create jobs, drive globe-leading research and support innovation. A broader student base benefits Canadian students with wider course selection and internationally-recruited professors.

Universities are not an export good, but students coming to Ontario for an education bring money to Ontario’s economy.

There is space to advocate for a fixed student visa strategy that doesn’t commodify citizenship but does allow international enrollment that benefits Ontario’s students and economy. We’ll see if there is a political party willing to claim it.