
Higher Education Trends
By CBoC Education & Skills Team • Updated January 27, 2025
The Compass for Post-secondary Institutions in Canada
Higher Education Trends (HET) provides post-secondary institution (PSI) leaders with valuable data and insights into trends in higher education. It includes national student statistics in four pivotal areas that will help leaders gauge program success and evaluate their institution’s societal and economic value.

Topics covered by HET
Each quarterly publication will focus on one of the following four areas of higher education:
Enrollment outlook
- enrollment trends by institution type, credentials, province, field of study, student demographics, status of students
- enrollment projections by province
Student outcomes
- persistence rate and graduation rate by institution type, credentials, province, field of study, student demographics, status of students in Canada
- employment status and median earnings after one and five years after graduation by institution type, credentials, province, field of study, student demographics, status in Canada
Student mobility
- interprovincial and international student mobility in post-secondary education (PSE) enrollment
- interprovincial and international student mobility one and five years after graduation
Student finance
- student tuition, loans, and aid by type of credentials, field of study, and province
Recent Releases

Student Mobility
January 27, 2025
Canada continued to witness robust growth in international student enrolments in the 2022/2023 academic year, with 468,000 international students enrolled in Canadian post-secondary education (PSE). This marked a 16.0 per cent increase from the previous year and represents more than a decade of consistent expansion, with international enrolments rising by nearly 170.0 per cent over the past ten years.
Online experience • 15-min read
Forthcoming

Student Finance
November 28, 2024
Tuition fees for domestic undergraduate students have increased by 20 per cent since 2013–14, which is below the rate of inflation over this period. This is partly due to provincial tuition freezes. In contrast, tuition fees have doubled for international students (and nearly tripled since the mid-2000s). At the graduate level, tuition fees for international students have also considerably risen.
Online experience • 10-min read
Forthcoming

Student Outcomes
June 19, 2024
The landscape of Canadian PSE enrolment experienced a notable recovery after the pandemic restrictions were lifted. In the academic year 2021–22, there were around 2.2 million students enrolled in Canadian PSE, a 0.9 per cent increase from the year before. We project that the enrolment in PSE will see fast growth in 2023–24 and 2024–25, reaching about 2.4 million students in 2026–27.
Online experience • 14-min read
Forthcoming
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