Ontario Votes 2025: Postsecondary Education

Ontario Votes 2025: Postsecondary Education

On this page:

• Quick takes for the voting booth
• The starting line: what you need to know about postsecondary in Ontario right now
• What are parties proposing to improve postsecondary?

 

Quick takes for the voting booth

Ontario has a lot of catching up to do on the postsecondary file. Voters should be worried that their province is underinvesting in postsecondary education at a time when preparing for a knowledge-based economy is top of mind.

With only $1000 invested per person under age 45, Ontario only spends about half of what BC and Alberta are investing in postsecondary on a per capita basis. This is a startling finding, especially since postsecondary students and institutions in these better-funded jurisdictions struggle with the same living cost pressures as in Ontario.

*UPDATE* Ontario's Liberal, NDP, and Green party leaders called out Ontario's low level of postsecondary investments compared to other provinces in the Feb 17 debate. That's certainly a start... but it's also then all the more surprising that none of these parties plan to remedy the problem (and neither do the incumbent Progressive Conservatives). This was confirmed when the Liberals and NDP shared costing estimates for their platform promises on February 21 -- joining the Greens who provided estimates much earlier in the election.

The bottom line remains the same - no party is ambitious enough in its plans for postsecondary investment. All tolerate Ontario continuing to lag far behind Canada’s other populous, English-speaking provinces. The NDP would close the gap with BC and Ontario by 25%; the Liberals and Greens by 10%. It's not yet clear if the Conservatives intend to close the gap at all.

Leaving postsecondary funding in Ontario so much lower than in BC and Ontario will NOT help younger Ontarians get ahead at a time when living costs – and especially housing prices – are rising. Nor will it optimally position young people to prepare for jobs in a knowledge economy.

The starting line: what you need to know about postsecondary in Ontario right now

Since most Ontario parties haven’t developed detailed, costed platforms, we rely on the 2024 Ontario budget to make meaning of promises from the four main parties vying for office.

Ontario only invests about $1000 per person under age 45 for postsecondary education

The 2024 Ontario budget cut funding for postsecondary education by $400 million, dropping the annual investment to $12.2 billion. It’s only projected to rise to $13 billion by 2026.

Notes on our Methodology: We’re guided by our peer-reviewed method for allocating social spending by age as well as population projections for 2026. We estimate about $10 billion of Ontario’s postsecondary funding is used by the roughly 10 million Ontarians under age 45. This works out to an investment of around $1,000 per person under age 45. Gen Squeeze standardizes “younger people” in Canada as those “under age 45” when doing our per capita analyses. Yes, we know that kids under 18 aren’t generally in college or university. We’re simply offering per capita <45 numbers to compare apples to apples when looking at spending in other provinces.

Ontario postsecondary spending per student is barely half that of BC’s and Alberta’s

In BC, the provincial government will spend $10.2 billion on postsecondary, with roughly $7.9 billion going to the 3.4 million residents under age 45. That works out to about $2,100 per younger person.

Alberta budgets $8.0 billion for postsecondary education in 2026. Approximately $5.9 billion of this funding will be used by the 3.1 million residents under age 45. This means Alberta spends about $1,900 on postsecondary per resident under age 45.

It’s important to look at per capita spending, because a comparison of tuition costs across Canada doesn’t reveal the degree to which postsecondary is underfunded in Ontario.

Statistics Canada shows average undergraduate tuition fees in Ontario were $8,514 in 2024, compared to $6,607 in BC and $7,734 in Alberta. By this metric, Ontario doesn’t look nearly as far behind. However, the shortfall in per capita funding has a more systematic impact on postsecondary education in Ontario, because it hollows out investments in college and university institutions, as well as direct cash supports available to students during their studies (when they struggle with high and rising rents and cannot work full-time).

Ontario currently plans to continue underinvesting in postsecondary relative to other provinces

A review of historical funding trends reveals what’s led to the current situation.

Doug Ford became Ontario’s Premier in 2018. The year prior to his taking office, postsecondary funding in Ontario was $11.2 billion. During his tenure, Premier Ford’s fiscal plan will grow total spending by $1.8 billion as of 2026 (to reach the $13 billion figure cited above).

Over the same period, the BC government will increase annual postsecondary spending by over $4 billion – for a population one-third the size of Ontario’s. Alberta will increase annual spending by at least $2.5 billion –for a population 30 per cent of the size of Ontario’s.

What are parties proposing to improve postsecondary?

This analysis is current as of February 21. We will update as we get closer to the election date, and welcome parties being in touch with us to draw our attention to policy announcements.

Progressive Conservatives: The party has not made any specific campaign promises about postsecondary education.

Greens: The party platform (p. 49) promises to “address the gaps in post-secondary education” by:

• Converting Ontario Student Assistance Program (OSAP) loans to grants for low and middle-income students, and eliminating interest charges on student debt. (This is much like the Liberal and NDP promises, so there is not a lot of daylight between the three parties on this issue).
• Restoring funding for universities based on enrollment, not performance.
• Increasing per student funding by 20 per cent immediately, and adjusting this promise to match inflation in the years ahead.
• Ensuring consistent and fair labour standards for instructors in postsecondary institutions, including pay equity.
• Modernize funding models for postsecondary to incentivize part-time enrollment to help young people manage the high cost of living, and support continuous learning throughout one’s career.

The Green party estimates that these changes would cost about $1 billion more per year. When we re-run our per capita spending analyses from above with this projected increase, we find that spending would increase from about $1,000 per person under age 45 to about $1,100. This investment level would still be well below per capita investments in BC and Alberta, which are around $2,000.

Liberals: Postsecondary education is a significant focus for the Ontario Liberal campaign – a key pillar in its “New Deal for young people in Ontario”. We love this framing, by the way, because Gen Squeeze has long called for a Better Generation Deal to remedy how the policy deck has long been stacked against those under age 45.

The party promises to:

• Eliminate interest on the OSAP loans, and will raise $50,000 the income threshold above which students are required to repay the loan.
• Create 40,000 new paid co-op, internship and apprenticeship positions through subsidies delivered to employers by tax credits as part of the party’s commitment to reduce unemployment among young adults.
• Cap international student enrollment at 10 per cent, and adjust funding for postsecondary institutions to compensate.

The Liberals released a high-level costing of their platform on February 21. It shows that the party will increase spending on grade school and postsecondary by $1.9 billion/year. The party does not indicate what share of this funding will go to postsecondary.  For the sake of comparing with other parties, we assume that half of the education spending will target postsecondary, or $950 million.  That is nearly identical to the Green party proposal. So the Liberals are likely to close only 10 per cent of the gap in funding for postsecondary between Ontario, on one hand, and BC and Alberta on the other.

NDP:  The NDP released more information about its platform on February 21, including more information about postsecondary.  The NDP promises to increase per-student funding by 20 per cent,  eliminate interest on existing student loans (like the Liberals and Greens), and convert student loans into grants to deliver financial assistance that doesn’t require repayment.

Like the Liberals, the NDP's projected costing does not identify funding specifically for postsecondary; but does provide a combined estimate that shows it plans to add $5.3 billion for postsecondary and grade school together by 2027. This is the second largest increase in the NDP platform, after the proposal to double the Ontario Disability Support Program's budget.  Assuming half of the funding for education will go to postsecondary, it appears that the NDP will invest considerably more into postsecondary than the other provinces:  around $2.65 billion.

That would be enough to close about 1/4 of the gap between per capita postsecondary funding in Ontario versus BC and Alberta.

 

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