Canada's higher education system continues to rank among the top in the world

Canada outperformed the United States, the United Kingdom and Germany when it comes to spending on higher education, according to the latest Universitas 21 report released in May.

The Australian organization’s latest higher education systems ranking places Canada fifth in the Resources category, which measures government and private sector financial support for higher education in the country as a percentage of GDP.

The U21 report ranks 50 countries across four categories: Resources, Environment, Connectivity and Output. Overall, the study ranked Canada eighth.

Canada ranks 6th on par with Sweden in the Output category, which measures post-secondary research produced and its impact, the number of graduates and researchers, the quality of a country’s top universities, and the employability of graduates.

The report highlights that “Canada and Russia have the most qualified workforce, followed by Japan and Israel, and Ukraine and Korea.” This is measured based on the percentage of the population ages 25 to 64 with post-secondary level education.

In terms of Connectivity, Canada made its way up by two in the rankings from 14 to 12. Connectivity looks at whether or not a country’s higher education system has strong national and international links. Connectivity considers how a nation’s post-secondary education system can provide opportunities for international education and research.

Canada’s ranking in the Environment category also improved this year, where it jumped seven places from 20 to 13. This category measures a country’s higher education system based on diversity of staff and students, competition between learning institutions and third-party monitoring of institution performance.

The report’s authors recommend that investment in research may contribute to a nation’s economic growth and note the connection between innovation and/or creativity to an educated workforce.

Here are the top 10 countries in this year’s U21 Overall Rankings: