We’ve probably all seen reports describing out-of-control higher education costs in the US. An education that in the 1970’s could be paid for with some savings and a part time job at the local Burger King will now cost you the equivalent of a down payment on a multi-family investment property. I’m not exaggerating. Check it out for yourself.
Those increases are not just the result of regular inflation. When you track US college costs against consumer goods (as the economist Mark J. Perry did here), you’ll see that rising college-related expenses are unlike anything else (besides healthcare).
What changed? The word on the street is that those crazy tuition costs are mostly due to colleges hiring armies of non-teaching administrators.
That’s what’s going on below the 49th. But what about Canadian universities? Back in 2006-7, according to Statistics Canada, across all Canadian universities the average inflation-adjusted cost of one year’s undergraduate tuition was $17,363. Fast forward to 2023-2024 - just seventeen years on - and that same tuition-only cost has now doubled to $34,628.
Note how I referred to those numbers as “costs”. That’s because $34,628 is what you’ll pay if you’re an international student without scholarships. Thanks to government subsidies, Canadians get a big discount. In fact, domestic students currently pay only $6,434. But it’s taxpayers who cover the difference.
So tuition is rising far faster than inflation. But is there any way to estimate what it is that’s driving those increases? Yup.
As the chart shows, since 2001, teaching jobs have dropped from accounting for 17.38% of all university positions down to 14.52% in 2022. In other words, universities are, proportionally, hiring teaching staff at significantly lower rates than they used to.
However, those numbers don’t tell us who universities are hiring instead of teaching staff. Perhaps they’re building up their food services, security, and custodial crews. There is at least one identifiable subgroup that’s visibly ballooned: education support services. That North American Industry Classification System category (NAICS 6117) includes educational consultants, student exchange program coordinators, testing services, research and development, guidance counselors, and tutoring and exam preparation services.
Since 2001, the proportion of support services staff in relation to all hires has more than doubled, from 1.06% to 2.62%. Their absolute numbers across Canada rose from 3,829 to 15,292 - that’s a jump of 400%.
All of which suggests that the problems attracting so much attention in the US are very much part of the higher education ecosystem here in Canada. The big difference, though, is that Canadian taxpayers are expected to pay for a far greater proportion of the product.
Which wouldn’t be quite so bad if I could un-see those recent images of the system’s beneficiaries. I mean the images of students incoherently rioting on behalf of savage killers whose territories they probably couldn’t find on a map.
“Hey kids, let’s go protest Scotia Bank to force them to divest their subsidiary, West Bank!”
Wokeism is killing our culture. In every way. Former Liberal here.
If support staff salaries represent under 3% of payroll (and that's probably an overestimate, since they won't get paid as much as teaching staff and administrators), then growth in the proportion of support staff can't explain an approximately 100% increase in tuition.