Canada’s Best Universities 2023: Student Retention

These numbers show the percentage of full-time, first-year students enrolled in the fall of 2020 who returned to the university the following year. Many factors can affect a student’s choice not to return, but on the whole, retention reflects a university’s success in keeping its students on track.

University	Per cent
McGill	94.3
Queen’s	94.0
Calgary	93.6
Waterloo	93.2
Western	93.0
Guelph	92.9
UBC	92.5
Alberta	92.4
Laval	92.3
Sherbrooke	92.2
McMaster	92.1
Toronto	91.1
Carleton	90.0
Toronto Metropolitan	89.2
Ottawa	88.6
Brock	88.1
Concordia	87.4
Manitoba	87.4
Dalhousie	87.3
Montréal	87.1
Wilfrid Laurier	87.1
Simon Fraser	87.0
Victoria	86.5
York	85.8
St. Francis Xavier	85.7
Mount Allison	84.8
Windsor	84.7
UQAM	84.1
Saskatchewan	83.8
UPEI	83.3
Ontario Tech	83.1
Saint Mary’s	83.1
Bishop’s	82.4
Acadia	81.8
New Brunswick	81.2
Trent	81.0
Lakehead	80.8
Moncton	80.6
Cape Breton	80.5
UNBC	79.9
Regina	79.5
Nipissing	79.3
Mount Saint Vincent	79.0
Memorial	77.6
St. Thomas	75.3
Lethbridge	74.9
Winnipeg	73.9
Brandon	71.7
Laurentian	71.4

More on Canada’s best universities:

Average entering gradeGrade distributionProportion who graduateAverage class sizeFaculty with highest degree in their field