Canada is currently in the midst of a student debt crisis. Over 20% of Bachelor degree holders graduate from their programs owing more than $25,000 in debt. Those findings are from 2017 — the numbers have likely grown since then. Tuition costs have gone up every single year for the past three decades, and the majority of students are having trouble keeping up.

According to Statistics Canada, undergraduate students currently pay an average of $6,838 for tuition in a single year. In 2017, that average was approximately $6,500 a year. Graduate students pay an average of $7,086 per year. And the following specialty programs come with astronomical tuitions in Canada:

• Pharmacy: $10,746 a year
• Law: $13,332 a year
• Medicine: $14,780 a year
• Dentistry: $23,474 a year
  
  

The steady rise in tuition costs isn’t the only thing causing students to take out massive loans. The student debt crisis is aided by precarious employment and stagnant wages — these can barely cover the costs of living in the GTA, let alone the rising costs of higher education.

Decades ago, students could pay off their yearly tuition with the money that they made during a summer job. Now, a student would have to make almost $7000 from seasonal employment. The minimum wage in Ontario is currently $14.00 an hour — this means that students would have to work over 490 hours just to match the price of tuition. If they worked for forty hours a week for three months straight at a minimum wage job and saved every single penny of their paycheques, they would still come up short.

Plus, tuition isn’t the only expense that comes with the university/college experience. Students have to pay for books, dorm rooms/rent, utilities, food, transportation, phone bills and more. When you tally up the costs, it’s easy to see why so many people turn to loans for help.