Canada can’t match the top U.S. universities’ salaries. American academics still want to move

A photograph of the outside of the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto on Friday, Jan. 25, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

OTTAWA — Jason Stanley moved from the United States to Canada last September, leaving behind a high-profile position at Yale to take a job at the Munk School of Global Affairs in Toronto.

The fascism researcher said he made the move for one reason: academic freedom.

“That’s the only reason. Nobody’s coming to Canada for higher wages because you’re not getting higher wages. You’re getting lower retirement, lower salaries, sometimes more teaching. So it’s academic freedom,” Stanley said in an interview with The Canadian Press.

“Canada is never going to be able to match the top private universities in the United States in salaries and benefits. It should do as much as it can, but it’ll never match them. So what Canada can do is offer freedom of speech, academic freedom and democracy.”

Stanley is not alone. Post-secondary associations on both sides of the border report increased interest among American researchers in academic positions north of the 49th parallel.

Lynn Pasquerella, president of the American Association of Colleges and Universities, told The Canadian Press that many academics are feeling political pressure from state and federal governments to change what they teach and study.

She pointed to the high-profile case of a Texas A&M philosophy professor who was told he could not teach certain works of Plato — considered the father of Western philosophy — because they dealt with gender and sexuality.

“Faculty members are not only experiencing burnout but extraordinary moral distress, where they feel coerced into making decisions they believe are unethical but they feel they have no choice,” Pasquerella said.

Because of this, Pasquerella said, there’s been a “surge” in interest among American academics in opportunities at post-secondary institutions in Canada and other nations.

Gabriel Miller, president of Universities Canada, said in an emailed response that his organization is looking forward to the announcement of the first successful Canada Impact+ Research Chairs program. This federal program is aimed at attracting global talent to Canada to advance “strategic priorities,” including health care, clean technology and artificial intelligence.

“While we eagerly await the results of the first competition, early institutional feedback indicates the program is successfully attracting exceptionally high-calibre researchers, with strong interest from American researchers and Canadian researchers looking to repatriate,” Miller said in an emailed statement.

While Universities Canada is encouraged by the federal government’s push to recruit top-tier foreign talent, it’s also advocating for additional financial support. It says current public funding — which mostly comes from provincial governments — is not keeping up with increased operating costs.

That problem is being compounded by declining post-secondary revenue from international student tuition as the government cuts the number of student visas.

The federal government is putting a lot of money into recruiting foreign research talent in medicine, engineering, science and the humanities over the next decade. The money includes a combined $1.7 billion over the next 13 years through a suite of programs announced in the November budget.

The stated goal of these programs is to attract top-flight research talent to give Canada a competitive edge in the global economy.

Since returning to office last year, U.S. President Donald Trump has secured multi-million dollar settlements with several high-profile American universities in exchange for restoring federal research funding.

Columbia University paid the U.S. government a $200 million settlement after the Trump administration accused the university of failing to properly address antisemitism on campus during protest encampments against the Israel-Hamas war.

Smaller protest encampments have appeared on Canadian college campuses in opposition to Israel’s actions during the war.

While Canadian schools have not been fined by the federal government, Stanley described some of the political rhetoric about campus protests here as having a “chilling” effect on debate about an important issue.

“I’m very sensitive about it because I lost so much to move here,” Stanley said.

He said it’s vital that Canada maintain a climate of open debate and free inquiry “after U.S. universities have lost billions of dollars in fines and funding because their students protested against Israel.

“You’re not going to get U.S. researchers coming and sacrificing their salaries for the same situation.”

Pasquerella agreed that Canadian institutions face their own challenges to academic freedom as long as right-wing populist movements remain a global force.

Still, she said her association is tracking increased interest among American researchers looking to Canada and to other countries like the U.K., Germany and Australia.

Pasquerella added that Canada’s new citizenship-by-descent law, which grants citizenship to children of Canadians who were born abroad before Dec. 15, 2025, is generating interest among academics.

“The high-profile researchers from Yale, other prestigious institutions who moved to Canada set the stage,” she said. “And now with the publicity around Americans capable of applying for Canadian citizenship, there’s been a surge in interest.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 25, 2026.

—With files from The Associated Press.

David Baxter, The Canadian Press