“American brains, Canada’s gain,” trum­peted the head­line of a recent Globe and Mail story.

This arti­cle reported that “at a time when many U.S fam­i­lies are find­ing they have fewer dol­lars than they expected to spend on higher edu­ca­tion, the price of a Canadian under­grad­u­ate degree is look­ing attrac­tive.”

This spring, many Canadian uni­ver­si­ties reported an increase in appli­ca­tions from U.S. stu­dents, and a grow­ing num­ber of those stu­dents are say­ing “yes” to offers from Canadian schools:

At Montreal’s McGill University, where there is a long tra­di­tion of U.S. recruit­ing, Americans accounted for 12 per cent of this year’s fresh­man class.….

McGill has seen a steady increase in American stu­dents, with num­bers ris­ing by 22 per cent in the past five years.

More than 9,000 Americans are cur­rently attend­ing col­leges and uni­ver­si­ties in Canada. In the mid-​​1900s, that num­ber was barely over 2,000.

Canadian uni­ver­sity edu­ca­tion is gov­ern­ment sub­si­dized, so most Canadian uni­ver­sity stu­dents pay less than $5,000 for their annual tuition. Even for stu­dents com­ing from out­side of Canada, inter­na­tional tuition is still a rel­a­tively rea­son­able aver­age of $13,200 per year.

The Globe and Mail arti­cle com­pared over­all annual costs for a stu­dent from the U.S. attend­ing Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia ver­sus Boston University:

…Dalhousie esti­mates that tuition, books, hous­ing and health insur­ance run $23,636 a year. At Boston University, a school that often com­petes for the same U.S. stu­dents, the equiv­a­lent annual cost comes to $61,794.

If you or a fam­ily mem­ber is con­sid­er­ing edu­ca­tion in Canada, here are resources to help start your school search:

The Canadian Council of Ministers of Education has cre­ated a use­ful web­site for stu­dents look­ing at Canadian post-​​secondary edu­a­tion. It includes an overview of Canada’s uni­ver­sity sys­tem, infor­ma­tion about costs and finan­cial aid, and a search func­tion that lets you iden­tify schools and pro­grams across the country.

Another help­ful tool is the Globe Campus Navigator, which lets you com­pare fea­tures of var­i­ous Canadian uni­ver­si­ties.

And if you’d like to share your expe­ri­ences about study­ing in Canada, please leave a com­ment below.

Photo ©Carolyn B. Heller