Tuition up most in Sask., Ontario & PEI

Tuition fees for Canadian full-time students in undergraduate programs are $5,772 on average in 2013/14, up 3.3 per cent from a year earlier, Statistics Canada reported Thursday. That follows a 4.2 per cent increase in 2012/13.  Inflation was 1.3 per cent for the year, meaning tuition is growing faster than many other costs. Compulsory fees for undergraduates—which cover things like athletic centres and student unions—increased at an even faster rate, 5.3 per cent, to an average of $817. Tuition fees rose in all but Newfoundland and Alberta, where rates are frozen this year. A new report from the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives, a left-leaning think tank, notes that tuition costs have roughly tripled since 1990.

Here are 2013/14 average undergraduate tuition rates with the percentage change over last year:

Canada $5,772 (+3.3%)

Newfoundland and Labrador $2,644 (-)

Prince Edward Island $5,696 (+4.1%)

Nova Scotia $6,185 (+3.5%)

New Brunswick $6,133 (+3.2%)

Quebec $2,653 (+3.4%)

Ontario $7,259 (+4.1%)

Manitoba $3,779 (+1.6%)

Saskatchewan $6,394 (+4.7%)

Alberta $5,670 (-)

British Columbia 5,029 (+2.0)

Average undergraduate tuition fees by field of study in 2013-14 range from $4,378 for education to $17,324 for dentistry. One might think high-cost professional programs like dentistry, medicine, law and pharmacy would skew the results greatly, but they do not. The average tuition with those fields removed is only five per cent lower, according to Nicole Paquin, Statistics Canada survey manager.