There has been a steady decline of provincial and federal funding for post-secondary education over the last 20 years. This has resulted in the provincial government and individual university and college administrations replacing the lost funding with tuition fees and other user fees. In the early 1990s, user fees accounted for an average of 21 per cent of an institution’s operating budget. Today user fees cover almost 50 per cent of the institution’s budget.
In Ontario, the provincial policy for domestic students is tuition fee increases of 4 to 8 per cent each year, resulting in 20 to 36 per cent hikes over four years of study. These increases are among the highest in the country. Click here to see how Ontario's tuition fees compare to other provinces
Ontario's policy of tuition fee increases is a political choice that the government has made, and it deviates from other provinces that have frozen and reduced tuition fees. In fact, some countries such as Ireland, Brazil and Sweden do not charge any tuition fees for education.