In terms of comparing fairly: Initially I was also trying to factor in income levels (tuition as a proportion of annual income, etc.) I remember reading that the average Canadian makes about 28% less than the average American. I imagine it would skew the data even further in favour of the Americans. But I realised I shouldn’t be so specific with my school comparison in terms of school demographics, yet be so general in family income comparisons. Since I don’t have average income data for families that have members in school at Guelph, I dropped it and just went for the straight comparison.

I definitely understand that, on average, the typical Canadian post-secondary student pays significantly less than the average American post-secondary student. Though there should be a recognition that the available post-secondary options in the USA are far more diverse (in cost, size, scope, and quality* of school) than they are in Canada. In that sense, averages comparing the two aren’t particularly telling.

* Maybe the quality argument though would skew things in our favour :) Go Guelph.

First off, in terms of comparing the dollar amounts spent on tuition, a currency exchange rate is not a sufficient method of getting dollar equivalence. Purchasing Power Parity is a better method, albeit not perfect by any means.

These numbers are from the organization for economic co-operation and development:

http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/54/18598754.pdf

The 2007 Canadian PPP figure is 1.22 vs the US baseline value of 1.
Thus for the same theoretical basket of good we must spend 1.22 times
as much as an American. There are other cost indices, like the Big Mac Index maintained by the Economist, which could also be used.

Secondly in terms of comparison, It seems to me that one must look at the average costs at a national level to get a good representation:

The American Association of State Colleges and Universities
National Association of State Universities and Land-Grant Colleges publishes statistics for tuition fees for it’s 556 members. The average tuition at a public four year institution averages $5836 for 2006-2007.

http://www.aascu.org/pdf/07_charges.pdf

Now if I compare that number to the national 2005-2006 CFS sourced
numbers you have linked and for argument’s sake tack on a 10% increase to
give us hypothetical 2006-2007 numbers.

We have:

Average US Undergrad Tuition: Average Canadian Undergrad Tuition:

$5836*1.22 = $7199.2 $4214*1.10 = $4635.4

Seems to me, there is a pretty big difference there on average.