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This big trend is one that I’ve seen no evidence of in Canada. I suppose something could always blow up, but so far all there have been are the usual low-level scuffles between left-wing and right-wing student groups, the sort of thing that has been going on forever. The fact is, Canadian universities are quite different from American ones. Even though we have a fairly integrated job market, the incentives that the institutions face are almost completely different in the two countries.

There are few better ways of illustrating the difference than to look at the top U.S. colleges and compare them to a highly-ranked Canadian university, like the University of Toronto where I work. The first thing you’ll notice is that American schools are miniscule. The top 10 U.S. universities combined (Harvard, Princeton, Yale, etc.) have room for fewer than 60,000 undergraduates total. The University of Toronto, by contrast, alone has more capacity, with over 68,000 undergraduate students.

In other words, Canadian universities are in the business of mass education. We take entire generations of Canadians, tens of thousands of them recent immigrants, and give them access to the middle classes. Fancy American schools are in the business of offering boutique education to a very tiny, coddled minority, giving them access to the upper classes. That’s a really fundamental difference.

The second thing is that U.S. schools charge astronomical tuition fees. Most of the top 10 charge over US$45,000, but then they make students live on campus as well, which brings the total bill to over US$60,000 per year. University of Toronto, by contrast, charges annual tuition of just slightly over $6,000 for an Arts and Science degree, and students can live wherever they want, including at home.