Tuition fees and university participation for youth from low-income families

This paper examines Statistics Canada data to determine the relationship between tuition fees and university participation rates in Canada. The data show that the Canadian provinces with very low tuition rates do not have consistently higher university participation rates than do provinces with higher tuition levels. This confirms previous analysis by the Montreal Economic Institute. Perhaps more surprisingly, the Statistics Canada data show no positive correlation between low tuition fees and university participation in the specific case of young adults from low-income households. In other words, during the period studied, young adults from low-income households in the provinces with the lowest tuition levels were no more likely to attend university than young adults from similarly low-income households in provinces with much higher tuition rates.