Just the Numbers: Quebec Tuition Fees, Average Income and Minimum Wages since 1970
I know we’re usually just messing around here at 9to5 (dot cc) but I also like to think we’re a group of at least somewhat educated and intelligent people. We’re also from Montreal and the big news in Montreal is the student protests regarding the tuition hikes that are being proposed over the next 5 years. . I don’t really want to get into opinion here, just throwing up some facts since I honestly didn’t know them and researched them all for myself. Then I thought I’d share.
As we close in on the third month of student strikes here in Montreal (the city being the focal point for all strikes in Quebec) I have decided to do a comparison between what tuition has cost in the past in comparison to minimum wage as well as the average annual income to find out how much or how little it has been adjusted for inflation. I tried to find the percentage of the population that attended university by decade but wasn’t able to get those numbers consistently for all decades. I provided all the numbers that I could get a hold of. Then I wanted to make a graph, but I didn’t.
Other fun historical tidbits: Students have protested each and every tuition hike with various degrees of success. Prior to the current protest the previous longest protest was 8 weeks. I got the tuition fees here.
Tuition Fees:
1970-1990: $500
Wow. The government tried twice to increase the fees by $47 and the students protested and managed to keep the fees down for 20 years. Finally in 1990 the Liberals forced an increase of $280 a year for the next four years, bring it up pretty quickly to $1668.
1994-2007: $1668
Once that hike took effect it held for 13 years, the Liberals then announced another hike of $500 over a period of five years. This was met with a relatively weak protest and went through.
2012: $2168
In the same year that the last hike was fully in place, the Liberal now propose another hike of $1625 over the course of 5 years, bringing the total tuition fees to $3793 by 2017.
Minimum Wage and Average Income (Projected figures in red):
Year |
Minimum Wage |
Average Individual Income |
Tuition |
1970 |
$1.40 |
5683 |
500 |
1971 |
$1.45 |
5683 |
500 |
1972 |
$1.60 |
5683 |
500 |
1973 |
$1.85 |
5683 |
500 |
1974 |
$2.30 |
5683 |
500 |
1975 |
$2.60 |
5683 |
500 |
1976 |
$2.87 |
5683 |
500 |
1977 |
$3.15 |
5683 |
500 |
1978 |
$3.37 |
5683 |
500 |
1979 |
$3.47 |
5683 |
500 |
1980 |
$3.65 |
13369 |
500 |
1981 |
$3.85 |
13369 |
500 |
1982 |
$4.00 |
13369 |
500 |
1983 |
$4.00 |
13369 |
500 |
1984 |
$4.00 |
13369 |
500 |
1985 |
$4.00 |
13369 |
500 |
1986 |
$4.35 |
13369 |
500 |
1987 |
$4.55 |
13369 |
500 |
1988 |
$4.75 |
13369 |
500 |
1989 |
$5.00 |
13369 |
500 |
1990 |
$5.30 |
24259 |
500 |
1991 |
$5.55 |
24500 |
780 |
1992 |
$5.70 |
24800 |
1060 |
1993 |
$5.85 |
24600 |
1340 |
1994 |
$6.00 |
24500 |
1668 |
1995 |
$6.45 |
24700 |
1668 |
1996 |
$6.70 |
24300 |
1668 |
1997 |
$6.80 |
24300 |
1668 |
1998 |
$6.90 |
24800 |
1668 |
1999 |
$6.90 |
26100 |
1668 |
2000 |
$6.90 |
26300 |
1668 |
2001 |
$7.00 |
27500 |
1668 |
2002 |
$7.20 |
28200 |
1668 |
2003 |
$7.30 |
28400 |
1668 |
2004 |
$7.30 |
28300 |
1668 |
2005 |
$7.45 |
28900 |
1668 |
2006 |
$7.75 |
29900 |
1668 |
2007 |
$8.00 |
30600 |
1768 |
2008 |
$8.50 |
31100 |
1868 |
2009 |
$9.00 |
31500 |
1968 |
2010 |
$9.50 |
32140 |
2068 |
2011 |
$9.65 |
32780 |
2168 |
2012 |
$10.05 |
33420 |
2168 |
2013 |
$10.45 |
34060 |
2493 |
2014 |
$10.85 |
34700 |
2818 |
2015 |
$11.25 |
35340 |
3143 |
2016 |
$11.65 |
35980 |
3468 |
2017 |
$12.05 |
36620 |
3793 |
Notes on my figures: I wasn’t able to get consistant historical number, but found the average annual wage by decade for the 70s, 80s and 90s here. I apologize for the rapid jumps on the decade changes, since this is an average it is likely closer to the rate at the middle of the decade (keep in mind this study was done in 1990, so you can imagine the average income must be much lower in the early 80s and then higher in the late 80s). The big jump from 1989 to 1990 is misleading if you don’t keep this in mind.
From 1990 Onwards I went here.
I’ve included the average income of an individual instead of a family.
I could only find statistics up to 2009, so I adjusted the average income using maths of the past 5 years and projected the next years up until 2017. This basically turned into an increase in minimum wage of 40 cents per year and increased salary of $620 a year for individuals. I know this doesn’t accurately reflect the inflation rate, but neither does salary so I couldn’t come up with a good way to balance those so I chose a 5 year average.
Some numbers that I really wanted but was unable to find were the percentage of Quebecers that actually attended university over the course of the past 40 years. In the 1970s tuition was 10% of the average annual income, but by 1990 it was only 2%. You would hope that with that comparatively low tuition rate people would be capitalizing and getting educated, but who knows? Those numbers would be fascinating to look at to see the correlation between the amount of people that attend university in comparison to how expense it is compared to the average salary.
The math that I didn’t have time to do would be what a 20 hour a week part time job at minimum wage would get you in terms of annual salary and compare that to the tuition fees. Since that’s basically the worst case for students who are paying their own way through university. I did it for a few select years though; 1970, 1990, 2011 and 2017 (projected):
In 1970 it would take 17 weeks at a minimum wage salary part time job to earn 500. Your annual income would be $1456 so as a part time employed student your tuition fees would be a little over 30% of your salary.
In 2011 it would take 11 weeks for you to earn your tuition fees of $2168. Your annual income would be $10036. So your tuition fees would be around 21% of your salary.
At the biggest difference bewtween salary and tuition fees (1990) it would take you only 5 weeks part time salary to get your $500 and your annual income would be $5512. Tuition fees would only 9% of your part time salary.
With the proposed changes (and assuming my minimum wage estimates are somewhat accurate) in 2017 it will take about 16 weeks of your minimum wage part time job to get tuition fees of $3793 and your part time annual minimum wage will be $12532. Tuition would be 30% of your part time minimum wage salaries.
Hi,
You can find the numbers for the minimum wage 1970-1985 in Table 2 of this document: http://www.travail.gouv.qc.ca/fileadmin/fichiers/Documents/normes_travail/salaire_minimum/annexeII.pdf
Thanks! Table updated.