When my kids went off to university, I knew the annual bill would hit five figures. Tuition, rent and groceries pile up fast. But I wasn’t prepared for the thousands of dollars in extras.
The biggest jolt? A slate of mandatory university fees that can drive up the basic cost of postsecondary education by more than $1,200 a year.
Individually, additional school fees, classroom add-ons and unexpected everyday living expenses don’t seem like much. But together, they can quickly blow a carefully planned budget.
Many parents sending a child to university for the first time this fall may learn the same lesson.
“Looking at tuition, meal plans and housing is not enough,” says Kelley Keehn, chief executive of the Money Wise Institute in Toronto and author of the personal finance book Save Yourself.
Rather than one big bill, many of these costs creep up throughout the year. “It’s death by a million cuts,” she says.
The first surprise for many families is that tuition – which last year averaged $7,734 for Canadian undergraduate programs, according to Statistics Canada – isn’t the full cost of enrolment. Students are also hit with a long list of fees, and these charges are climbing, even when tuition isn’t.
In the 2025-26 school year, the average undergraduate student paid $1,214 in mandatory fees, up $215, or 21.5 per cent, from four years earlier. Those fees cover student services, athletic facilities, transit passes, student associations and more.
Many are paid upfront at the start of each school year and can instantly add, on average, more than 15 per cent to the cost of schooling above basic tuition.
Even in Ontario, where the Doug Ford government in 2019 imposed a tuition-hike freeze that was only recently eased, mandatory fees for undergraduate students rose to $1,310 in 2025-26 from $1,037 four years earlier, a 26.3-per-cent increase.
Alan Whitton, a financial blogger and retired federal government employee in Ottawa, remembers reviewing these fees when one of his daughters attended Queen’s University in Kingston, Ont., about 10 years ago.
Today, the university’s ancillary fees cover 24 pages and total more than $1,400. Around $925 are mandatory to cover things such as the campus gym, a transit pass and funding for various university organizations. Those fees also pay for recent renovations to the John Deutsch University Centre, a key building on campus – an annual fee of around $87 a year per student.
Another $100 or so in optional fees contributes to dozens of university clubs and groups, including the campus radio station and the university’s Taylor Swift Society.
There’s also an almost $400 fee for health and dental insurance, which is mandatory unless students can show they’re covered by a comparable plan.
Mr. Whitton recommends building mandatory fees into your budget, then taking a close look at anything you wish to opt out of. Because he and his wife already had health insurance, his daughter didn’t take part in Queen’s health and dental plan.
“That’s an easy way to save hundreds of dollars if you already have insurance,” he says.
Many programs come with extra costs that students may not discover until classes begin.
A health sciences student, for example, may incur continuing lab fees and need to invest in a lab coat and other materials. Then, there are online and printed textbook costs that can add up to more than $1,000. In some programs, students must pay fees to access online assignments.
These expenses can be difficult to predict, but some universities publish numbers to help students plan. The University of Waterloo, for example, has an online calculator that estimates costs by program and residence, while Western University has a page that lists fees.
“If it’s your first child going to school, you may not know what to expect,” says Angela Iermieri, a certified financial planner with Desjardins in Montreal, who has had two sons attend university.
She remembers unexpectedly having to come up with more than $500, as well as travel costs, so one of her sons could compete in a case competition in Toronto. “Going to university is like any major project. Think of it like a home renovation or a trip: You need to be ready for the extras.”
Living expenses can also generate additional costs. In most university towns, off-campus leases run for 12 months, even though many students only live there for the eight-month school year. That means paying rent year-round, adding thousands of dollars to the cost of university.
Last fall in Waterloo, Ont., some student properties were advertising perks to fill empty units.Alicia Wynter/The Globe and Mail
On the social side of things, students likely want to have dinner with friends, join clubs and play intramural sports. Those kinds of experiences are an important part of university life, but they also come with a price tag, says Dana Hicks, a certified financial planner with Edward Jones in Delhi, Ont., who has two children in university.
Ms. Hicks says parents and their kids should talk before school starts about how much money will be available each week for day-to-day spending and what’s realistic. Students might need to take on a part-time job to help cover those expenses.
“Kids still want to live their life,” she says.
By the time you add up all the extras, they become a significant part of the cost of a university education. How much should you expect?
The federal Office of the Superintendent of Financial Institutions projects the average cost of a year of postsecondary education in Canada will reach about $29,600 this school year. (That figure includes students in undergraduate, graduate, college and private school programs who receive student loans.)
Roughly one-third of that goes toward tuition and school fees. The rest covers housing, food, transportation, books and other living expenses.
For people who commute long distances to school, public transit costs can add up – which is why many transit agencies, including Montreal’s, offer discount passes to eligible students.Christopher Katsarov/The Canadian Press
To some deep-pocketed parents, all these unanticipated costs may not seem like much. What’s a few extra dollars here and there to get a good education, after all?
But for many others, university is already a financial stretch. Some students also end up paying all or most of the cost of university themselves. That means working full-time in the summer and throughout the school year. Making sure they have enough money to cover the year is already stressful, and every extra dollar they have to pay can add to the pressure.
According to a 2025 TD survey of 197 incoming or current postsecondary students, 92 per cent say they are stressed about their personal finances, compared to 65 per cent of the overall population. A Canadian Alliance of Student Associations report from 2024 found that 40 per cent of the 1,500 postsecondary students surveyed skip meals to pay for school, and 31 per cent stopped buying textbooks because of financial worries.
Isabella Falsetti/The Globe and Mail
So how can families avoid being blindsided by these expenses?
Ms. Keehn, the financial educator, advises creating a three-bucket budget. The first covers the fixed costs of school, including tuition, university fees, rent and food. The second bucket should include money for what she calls “above and beyond costs”: additional groceries, transportation and spending money.
She suggests setting aside an additional 10 to 20 per cent of a student’s annual education budget for any surprises. If the anticipated cost is $25,000, earmark another $2,500 to $5,000 for textbooks, a broken laptop, lost headphones or an unexpected school trip.
Having already sent her own children to university, Ms. Hicks says parents and students should start planning much sooner. Too many families don’t start crunching the numbers until an acceptance letter arrives at the end of Grade 12.
“I would start in Grade 11 when you’re thinking of which schools to apply for,” she says. That gives families time to compare not just tuition, but the full cost of attending each school.
If a student wants to study out of province, for example, they’ll also need to factor in flights home during holidays and school breaks. Starting early gives families time to decide how they’ll pay for university, including registered education savings plans, other savings, student loans and the student’s own contributions.
Ms. Hicks says students should help build the budget from the start. “You want them to have skin in the game.”
She also recommends reviewing the budget together around Thanksgiving of the first semester to see whether spending is on track. Students can go through their credit and debit card statements to see if they’re overspending on everyday items. If so, they may need to cut down on trips to Starbucks, ordering Uber Eats or going out on Saturday nights.
“Parents and students tend to budget for the expenses of school, but don’t always consider the living part outside of school,” Ms. Hicks said.
Fred Lum/The Globe and Mail
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