A blog post by Phil Froats of Canadian Business initiates an interesting thought process questioning the amount Canadians spend on education, per capita, between the ages of five and twenty-four.

The above graph illustrates per capita spending in 2001 (blue: adjusted to 2011 figures; red: adjusted to 2011 figures plus 50% for higher education quality) compared to 2011 (green).  There is obviously a jump in spending, even including inflation and education improvement.  Froats brings up an interesting point: should we be questioning this jump in spending?

Perhaps one question to ask is whether or not Canadian “education quality” has increased by 50%?  Has Canadian education improved more than 50% in the last ten years?  These are not easy questions to answer, and are very opinionated topics.  It is extremely difficult to put a percentage number on education improvement.  There is no doubt that Canadians have access to tremendous academic opportunities growing up.  There is always the question of whether tuition costs are appropriately priced, but tuition costs have to be paid from somewhere (see Greece if you don’t know what I mean).

Photo taken from this blog post

Comments are encouraged below.