We talk a lot about international student mobility in Canada.  But what about inter-provincial student mobility?  Let’s go find out.

In 2018-19, the last year for which data is available, the proportion of Canadian undergraduates who were studying in another province was about 8.4%.  As Figure 1 shows, this proportion has been increasing very slowly for the last thirty years (the precipitous drop in 1996-97 has to do with Quebec universities not reporting data in that year, something which I am pretty sure was connected to the introduction of higher fees for out-of-province students that September).  Data for colleges is harder to track because there are several provinces – in particular Quebec – which do not report province-of-origin.  But it is clear from the available data that rates of inter-provincial mobility among college students are considerably lower than they are for universities – probably in the 2-3% range.            

Figure 1: Percentage of Canadian Students Studying out-of-province, 1993-94 to 2018-19

Figure 2 looks at data on a provincial level and demonstrates that most provinces have seen an increase in the overall percentage of students coming from other provinces.  Only one province – Manitoba – has seen a decrease in the proportion of total students who come from out-of-province.  Others – on the whole provinces with small and declining youth populations, mainly in the Atlantic – have seen big increases.  Indeed, across the Atlantic, just over a quarter of all students are Canadians studying out-of-province (though to a considerable extent what this figure represents is a lot of movement from within the region).  In Nova Scotia, that figure is much higher (36.1%) and if international students are included, one finds that over half of the student population of Nova Scotia is from outside the province.  In Ontario and Quebec, on the other hand, the percentage of students who come from other provinces is barely five percent.

Figure 2: Percentage of Domestic Undergraduates from Other Provinces, by Province, 2018-2019

Another way to look at this is examining net flows of students: that is, the number of students entering the province minus the number exiting.   This is shown below in Figure 3.  At a very high level, the picture is that students tend to migrate eastward from western provinces: to Ontario and Nova Scotia, but also to a lesser degree to Quebec (students from British Columbia make up a surprising amount of Quebec’ net intake, presumably mostly heading to McGill). 

Figure 3: Net Intake of Undergraduates from Other Provinces, by Province, 2018-19

The net inflow figures are not all that stable.  Ten years ago, Ontario was a net exporter of students, and Newfoundland had much higher inflows than it currently does (the novelty of low tuition runs out eventually, I guess).  Fifteen years ago, Alberta took in more students than it sent away.  The only two constants over the past twenty years are that British Columbia and Prince Edward Island are significant net exporters and Nova Scotia and Quebec tend to attract more students than they export.

(A third, I suppose, is that Statscan data on college student mobility is terrible, but I suspect you had all already guessed that).