Abacus Data’s most recent Precarity Mindset report indicates that, in Canada and the U.S., only 18 per cent of the population say a college or university education is “definitely worth it.”Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
John Turley-Ewart is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail, a regulatory compliance consultant and a Canadian banking historian.
Is higher education worth it? Canadians and Americans share a common answer. Abacus Data’s most recent Precarity Mindset report indicates that, in both countries, only 18 per cent of the population say a college or university education is “definitely worth it.”
Just more than 20 per cent think it is “generally worth it.” The public skepticism builds from there. Thirty-seven per cent of Canadians polled say it depends on the “program and school,” 13 per cent indicate “costs now outweigh the benefits,” and nine per cent argue that the “system is broken.”
Sixty-nine per cent of Canadians believe “a degree is no longer the most reliable path to a secure career.” Abacus Data suggests higher education is “a calculation.” It is a calculation that will transform universities that do the math, and break those that won’t.
Higher education was always a calculation for those climbing the social ladder. Today the math isn’t adding up for many university programs, especially arts and humanities, given the tuition costs, housing costs, associated student debt and weak earning power some graduates endure along with a lifetime of financial stress.
The more tangible the skill set, the more income it generates, as Statistics Canada data shows. The median income for engineers five years postgraduation is $94,400. For arts and humanities graduates, it is more than 40 per cent less.
Universities are trying to adapt. You can see it in new university buildings and spaces. As The Globe and Mail reported last week, universities, such as the University of Alberta, “are now combining student services, classrooms, collaborative workspaces, wellness rooms, event spaces and informal gathering areas under one roof.”
Some call it community building. Accountants will call it economic rationalization that consolidates land and building use and facilitates cost cutting by spreading administrative and student services across a wider swath of the student body while shrinking the size of university departments.
Behind the new community facades, the financial wreckage can’t be missed.
In B.C., three-quarters of the province’s public postsecondary institutions are expected to run operating losses during the next three years, according to the B.C. Federation of Students. Faculty layoffs have topped 1,000, and almost 200 programs have been “cut, paused or suspended.”
Going into 2026, Ontario universities were collectively running a $1.3-billion annual deficit. Ontario’s provincial government offered transitional relief in its March budget, robbing pupils to pay professors by pulling an estimated 69 per cent of the $6.4-billion Ontario allocated to the postsecondary system over the next four years from its student grant program.
The message from Queen’s Park to Ontario’s universities is get your financial houses in order fast. To students, it is be prepared to pay.
Quebec universities face similar problems.
The extremes surface in the United States, where some university trustees and administrators are raiding endowment funds (pools of money meant to fund student scholarships or specified research) to finance operating budgets. Donors are starting to sue for improper use of funds, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Some university programs have priced themselves out of the market.
Foreign students were, for several years, a temporary solution to the fiscal woes of Canadian universities. They came with big cheques, little access to student housing and the expectation of winning Canadian citizenship. It wasn’t sustainable or politically palatable.
Ottawa can turn back foreign students today while provincial governments can look the other way when universities come begging because the university bargain with the public is broken.
The fix isn’t just cost controls. It is also value-add programming that better aligns skills taught with what the market rewards. That doesn’t mean the end of history, philosophy, fine arts, sociology or the humanities more generally.
But it should mean enhancing such programs with required courses in math, finance, science, business and technology (especially artificial intelligence), which help students experience the practical relevance of a liberal arts education in contexts that will help them postgraduation.
Just as importantly, the new math of a university degree means investing heavily in postgraduate student services that connect graduates with employment opportunities that can lift living standards of those currently at the bottom of the graduate income ladder.
The era of sending arts and humanities graduates into the world to fend for themselves is ending. Universities that accept it will thrive in today’s culture of precarity.