Career Path Calculator

How this is worked out

Money ahead is everything you have taken home after tax, minus living costs, minus school costs you paid yourself, minus loan payments, minus whatever you still owe on the loan. It assumes you keep whatever is left after your living costs. Year 0 is the start, at age 18.

• Studying first, then work. College comes first, then graduate school, for whichever of them a path has. There is no income while studying.
• Salaries. The starting salary is Job Bank’s low wage for the occupation and the typical salary its median, in the province or territory you choose. Job Bank’s low wage is in most cases the 10th percentile of what people in the occupation earn, and its wages do not account for years of experience (Job Bank’s method). Where Job Bank has no figure for that region, the box stays empty for you to fill in; Canada’s figure is never put under a province’s name.
• Salary growth. By default, year 1 of work is the starting salary; pay then rises by the same amount each year to the typical salary in year 10, and again by the same amount each year to the senior salary in year 20. Job Bank publishes no senior salary, so that box starts empty and pay stays at the typical salary after year 10, and the page says so; type a senior salary to see pay keep rising. After year 20 of work, pay stays at the senior salary; no further raises are assumed. You can choose instead to reach the typical or the senior salary by year 5, 10 or 15 and stay there, and you can change any of the three salaries.
• Tax. Take-home pay is salary minus the effective tax rate you pick.
• Living costs are one figure, the same on both paths in every year, college years included, so neither path is favoured. A school’s room and board is shown for information only and is not used in the calculation.
• Living at home. If you choose it for a path, the years it covers (while studying, and up to 5 years of work) cost the “living at home” figure instead of the general living costs, and that path borrows less by default.
• School costs. Each study year costs tuition minus grants and scholarships. A school’s tuition is the figure its Canadian page shows: from the school’s own published fees where we checked them, otherwise an estimate, and the page says which. A school’s average aid is shown as a hint only, and is not subtracted unless you enter it. The Canadian school pages list undergraduate and diploma tuition only, so a graduate program’s tuition is typed in.
• Loans. One student loan covers every year of study, in two portions: the Canada Student Loan, which charges no interest (since 1 April 2023), and your province’s or territory’s portion, at the rate it sets (its rules and sources are under “Both paths”). The suggested amount is everything there is to pay while studying (tuition minus grants plus your living costs in each study year), about 60% as the Canada Student Loan and 40% as the provincial portion, the shares the Canada Student Loans Program describes; in Yukon it is all federal, and in the Northwest Territories and Nunavut all territorial. It is not capped: your real loan comes from your aid assessment. No interest is charged while you study full time (National Student Loans Service Centre). Payments start 6 months after your studies end, and 12 months for Alberta’s and Prince Edward Island’s provincial loans; the Northwest Territories and Nunavut set their own start, and this estimate assumes 6 months. In Ontario and Saskatchewan the provincial portion charges interest during those 6 months, added to what you owe. Each portion is repaid over the length you choose (9.5 years is the standard schedule; Nova Scotia’s portion is at most 9.5 years), worked out as the Student Debt Calculator does. An extra amount paid each month goes to the provincial portion, the one that charges interest, or to the federal one when there is no provincial portion. The Repayment Assistance Plan is not modelled.
• Every year, 0 to 40. For each path, the yearly table shows the salary that year (CA$0 while studying), the debt still owed at the year’s end, and the loan payments made that year, interest included. The salary is green in every year a path earns something, and plain while it studies. The debt and the loan payments are red in every year a path still owes money and green from the year the debt is paid off, which is marked “✓ Debt paid off”; a path with no loan owes nothing, so they are green in every year. Money ahead, year by year, is in the chart and the milestone table.
• Pays for itself is the first year a path’s money ahead is back to CA$0 or more after being below zero. A path that never goes below zero is ahead from year 1.
• 40 years. Everything is worked out for 40 years from age 18. The summary sentence and the first view of the table and chart cover the first 20; “Show years 21 to 40” adds the rest. Debt-free, pays for itself and the catch-up year look across all 40 years, so a loan paid off after year 20 is still found.
• Today’s dollars. There is no inflation, and no raises beyond the salary steps above.
• Where figures come from. Salaries come from Job Bank, as on our Canadian career pages, and school costs from our Canadian university pages. Anything we do not have is left empty for you to fill in.

These are estimates to help you compare, not financial advice. Real salaries, costs, aid and loan terms vary.