Canadian universities have benefited from the pandemic, posting record revenues in 2020 and 2021 as students bear the brunt of inflation and the housing crisis.
Canadian universities reported unprecedented post-pandemic revenue surpluses as schools benefited from strong stock market performance last year.
Canadian universities netted $7.3 billion in revenue for the 2020-2021 school year, the highest tally since the federal agency began collecting data in 2000, according to a Statistics Canada report released Tuesday. Revenue rose 12 from a year earlier .8% to $46.3 billion while spending declined 3.8% to $39 billion.
Much of the sales increase can be attributed to strong stock performance in 2021. Universities earned a record $5.4 billion from investments in 2020-21, up from $44.3 million last year and an annual average of $1.4 billion over the past five years.
Due to the pandemic, many on-campus activities have been discontinued without reducing tuition. Universities cut spending 3.8% to $39 billion from $40.6 billion a year earlier.
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Second source of revenue after provincial funding ($15.1 billion), tuition earned universities $13.3 billion.
According to Statistics Canada, income from tuition fees would fill the gap in provincial funding. From 2010-11 to 2020-21, tuition increased from 21.5% to 28.8%, while state funding decreased from 41.5% to 32.5%.
Universities are unlikely to report as high revenue next year given the decline in stock markets since the beginning of this year, according to Statistics Canada. However, the resumption of activities on campus could lead to an increase in tuition and fringe benefit income.
In 2020-2021, universities lost nearly $1.5 billion, or 47.6% of their revenue from the sale of services and products, which consisted primarily of income from dormitories and other ancillary services. In 2019-20, these revenues accounted for 7.6% of total Canadian universities’ revenues. It was 3.5% in 2020-2021.