The numbers don’t lie: The struggle is real for Gen Z students

On a sunny September afternoon, Rose Landry sat on a rock in a shady area of ​​campus, eating her lunch out of a jar.

The third-year English and history student at St. Mary’s University in Halifax says she rarely goes off campus, but not really by choice.

“I don’t leave campus because I can’t afford to do anything off campus,” Landry says. “I don’t do anything besides school.”

The Peterborough, Ontario native is focused on her finances — and her education, because she knows if her grades drop, she’ll lose her scholarship, which pays for a large portion of her annual tuition.

“I stuck to my studies,” she says. “If I didn’t have the scholarship, I wouldn’t have been able to go… I would have had to drop out.”

There’s a constant drum beat that drives the rhythm of Landry’s semester: money.

And she is far from alone.

Post-secondary students are under pressure, facing high tuition costs, high unemployment rates, skyrocketing rents and rising prices for almost everything.

But are today’s postsecondary students worse off than previous generations? Is it more difficult now to make ends meet while getting an education than it was 10, 25 or 50 years ago?

Tution

In Canada, tuition has increased steadily since the late 1970s, except for a setback in 2019, when Ontario reduced and then froze tuition fees. Average undergraduate tuition has now reached its highest point An average of $7,734 for Canadian students in 2025-26.

But students in some provinces pay much more, with those in Nova Scotia leading the way. They pay an average of $9,988 per year, with New Brunswick in second place at $9,938 and Saskatchewan in third place at $9,863.

And it’s not just inflation that’s driving up tuition. In fact, the average Canadian tuition fees are almost double what they expected If tuition rates increased proportionally with inflationIn Nova Scotia, they are three times as many,

Government funding of post-secondary institutions has declined in recent years, forcing universities to rely more heavily on tuition fees to make up the shortfall.

employment

To pay for tuition, students who are unable to rely on scholarships or financial support from family turn to a mix of employment and student loans.

But how possible is it for students to pay their own way through university these days?

First, let’s see how easy it is to get a job.

Matt Cromwell, a 19-year-old Nova Scotia Community College student, says he applied to at least 100 jobs between leaving high school and starting college. He received only seven responses to those applications, four interviews and one job offer as a dishwasher.

Today, he works part-time at a different job he says he only got because he knew someone who referred him.

“It’s almost like you have to know someone or be related to someone to get a job now,” he says.

The employment rate for people aged 15 to 24 across Canada was 54.2 percent in October – One of the lowest rates since the 1990s, Except for the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.

Some analysts say Economic conditions, including inflation, population growth, and the impact of the US trade war, are contributing to the high unemployment rate.

Suppose a student gets a job, is it enough to survive?

In Nova Scotia, the minimum wage is $16.50 an hour. If a student works 40 hours per week during summer vacation from May to August, and, say, 18 hours each week during the school year from September to April, before taxes, they will earn a little over $20,000 per year.

So, sure – that’s enough to pay $9,988 in tuition, but does the remaining $10,000 or so cover housing?

Accommodation

according to a 2023 ipsos pollMore post-secondary students were planning to live at parents’ home, with the number rising to 47 percent in 2023 compared to 36 percent in 2013.

But if a student is unable to live with a family member and has to pay for housing, the average rental price tips the overall affordability scale significantly.

To keep up with the Nova Scotia example, average monthly rent In early 2025 for a bachelor apartment in Halifax it was $1,520, for a one-bedroom it was $1,770, and for a two-bedroom it was $2,230.

On an annual basis, this works out to $18,240 for a bachelor, $21,240 for a one-bedroom and $13,380 per person if two people are sharing a two-bedroom.

And this is without taking into account other costs, such as food, heating, taxes or anything else.

So, for many people, the answer to that earlier question about whether a student can work their way through university is a resounding ‘no’.

Cromwell has found a solution to exorbitant housing costs. He shares a room in Dartmouth, NS, with two other people — not an apartment, but a room — and splits the $870 rent three ways.

He says it’s hard to make your own way as a young person these days, but he’s still optimistic about the future.

“I hope something changes because a lot of students like me who are young and like, I wouldn’t say they’re lost, but a lot of students who have… no money, no time, no support, I don’t know what they’re going to do. It makes me sad.”

student loan

Loans are another way for some students to pay for education.

The percentage of Canadian undergraduate students with debt upon graduation has remained fairly stable from 2000 to 2020, but the percentage owing large amounts – $25,000 or more – has increased from 33 per cent in 2000 to 48 per cent in 2020. According to Statistics Canada dataThe average loan increased from $20,500 to $30,600 in the same time frame,

The statistics are even more dire in Nova Scotia. While the percentage of graduates with bachelor’s degrees in Nova Scotia who had debt upon graduation fell from 67 per cent to 58 per cent between 2000 and 2020, the percentage of graduates who owed $25,000 or more increased from 50 per cent to 67 per cent.

The average debt at graduation increased from $26,800 to $39,100 – the second highest debt in the country behind PEI, which had an average debt of $43,500 upon graduating with a bachelor’s degree.

‘It’s hard to be a young adult today’

“The data is beyond dispute,” says Paul Kershaw, a professor at the School of Population and Public Health at the University of British Columbia. “It’s harder to be a young adult today than it was a few decades ago.”

Kershaw has spent a lot of time thinking about generational differences in affordability. He is the founder of Generation Squeeze, a charitable think-tank that advocates for generational fairness.

He says high tuition, increasing debt upon graduation and difficulty finding work are major factors making life difficult for this generation of youth. But it is housing that is at the heart of their challenges.

“Compared to 25 years ago when I was a university student, it wasn’t as hard for me to pay my rent and I could get a summer job and cover most of my costs for a year,” says Kershaw. “It is like a hope and prayer for most youth today.”

As a result, some students choose to work more hours, or take fewer courses, or extend a four-year degree to five or six years to pay for it.

Grants, interest free loan assistance

“I would never say that this particular group that we’ve got is particularly blessed,” says Alex Usher, president of Higher Education Strategy Associates, a consultancy that provides guidance to governments, post-secondary institutions and other agencies.

But Asher says the situation is not as serious as it seems.

For many students, the cost of tuition is offset by tax credits, government funds from the Canada Education Savings Grant Program, grants, scholarships and interest-free government loans – some of which did not exist for previous generations.

“Whenever tuition goes up, we add grants and it balances out,” he says.

Usher acknowledges that housing is undeniably more expensive now, but he says most students have some degree of control over their living circumstances.

“If I’m from Toronto and send my kid to (Dalhousie University), yes, that kid is worse off. It’s more expensive to send that kid to Dull than it was before because housing prices in Halifax are more expensive than before. I don’t need to send my kid to Dull, right? They can go to York, they can go to U of T.”

However, he says the decision to live with family instead of living alone may come with compromises.

“Students probably have less freedom than they did 50, 60 years ago,” Usher says. “They have to rely on their parents a little more than before.”

Usher says comparisons over time are difficult, and depending on which factors are analyzed, it may be shown that one generation is at an advantage over another.

“Every group has its own set of challenges,” he says. “We need to recognize which bits are good, which bits are bad, and see how we can adjust things to make life easier.”

‘We need to fix the budget’

Kershaw says the government can make several adjustments to reduce Gen Z’s stress by prioritizing their needs and providing more funding for post-secondary education and housing.

But he says that whichever side of the generational equation is considered, these comparisons are not meant to be divisive.

“I’m not pitting generations against each other – there’s the budget. There’s the politics.”

He says the love seen between generations at the family table doesn’t just translate into policies, and it should.

“Parents and grandparents routinely make sacrifices for their children and grandchildren,” says Kershaw. “They would be disgusted to learn that politics is actually doing exactly the opposite – it is asking their children and grandchildren to make sacrifices for them.

“We need to fix budgets that are increasingly skewed toward younger people as they age.”

The bottom line – who had the worst situation?

We took snapshots of a student’s financial picture in the following years: 2025, 2010, 1995, 1980, and 1965.

We took into account a student’s income from working 18 hours a week at minimum wage during the school year and 40 hours a week during the summer.

We calculated the annual rent for a one-bedroom apartment in Halifax, and added the average annual tuition fee.

We found that income did not cover students’ expenses in any of those years – and it does not even include the cost of food, heating or taxes.

However, there are some nuances here. According to our calculations, here is the percentage of a student’s expenses that is covered by their income:

• 2025: 64 percent.
• 2010: 82 percent.
• 1995: 67 percent.
• 1980: 86 percent.
• 1965: 58 percent.

So for those of you who are really curious about the answer, perhaps the solution is that it is hard to get it as a student.

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