Le rendement privé et social de l’éducation universitaire au Québec en 2015

This study calculates for Québec the private and social rates of return to university education by various levels and fields of study using 2016 Canadian Census data.

The main results are presented in Tables R1,R 2 and Figure R1.

Table R1 indicates that:

  • I. The social return is always lower than the private return because part of the total cost of a university education is borne by society.
  • II. Rates of return decrease with growth in education level (MD excepted).
  • III. Rates of return are higher for women than for men.

Table R2 indicates that the rates of return vary greatly by field of study and are generally higher in scientific fields at the undergraduate level.

Figure R1 shows that undergraduate university studies paid a lot in Quebec in 2000,005, 2010 and 2015. The rates of return for 2015 differ from those in table 1 to allow intertemporal comparability.

We also find that for 2015:

  • university education is often better remunerated in the public than in the private sector;
  • an increase in the share of workers with a university degree in STEM increases the earnings of non STEM workers in Canadian CMAs.
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