While working on the Canadian Student Unions Index, we recorded a wide range of services offered by student unions at U15 universities. Unions received points for essential services and one point for any service outside the scope of essential services. Deciding to award only one point for non-essential services was a tough call, but it had to be made to make the comparison between small and large student unions fairer. A recurring theme throughout the analysis was that some unions offered unique services uncommon on other campuses we studied. However, our sample size was small and restricted to the large, wealthy student unions of the top-15 Canadian research universities. This got me thinking: what else is out there around the country? This piece is thus devoted to studying the most popular and least common services provided by undergraduate student unions in Canada.
The importance of services
Before going into the analysis, I would like to expand a bit on the importance of services for student unions. Outside of campuses, the popular imagination tends to view the primary function of student unions as organizing parties and events. Students tend to have a similar perception of their unions, because they are the ones attending those parties. Events are definitely important, and it is the job of a student union to make them as good and as frequent as possible. But events are only one-third of a student union’s responsibilities — the other two being advocacy and services.
Advocacy is hard and takes time. Campaigns can stretch for years and depend on factors outside student unions’ control. The links between lobbying and final results are not always obvious, and student governments also need to be good at communicating their wins, which is not always the case. The obscurity of advocacy efforts and lack of communication often leads to apathy among students, whose common opinion of their student union is that “they don’t do anything for us.” Fixing this perception is possible, but requires a concerted effort.
The provision of services is the area where a student union has the greatest opportunity to be visible and helpful. Throwing parties is fun, but services help alleviate the day-to-day hardships students face. Higher education has become more accessible over the last few decades, but the student experience differs widely based on socio-economic background. Student union services level the playing field a little, helping students focus on their academic work.
In short, providing quality student-led services is an opportunity to support students meaningfully and use their money wisely. Now, let’s explore the different ways student unions can help their members.
Data and sources
Although we already have data from the Canadian Student Unions Index, it is not sufficient, as the sample is biased towards larger, wealthier unions. For this article, I took the top-50 unions sorted by undergraduate enrollment as of Fall 2025, according to Universities Canada. The full list is available below. Three universities from the top-50 are not on the list: Université du Québec à Montréal and HEC Montréal do not have associations uniting their various faculty associations; and the University of Regina Students’ Association had just been formed at the time of writing in June 2026, replacing the failed University of Regina Students’ Union, and so does not yet have any services. Three unions outside the top-50 by full-time undergraduate enrollment were therefore added to bring the total to 50.
For the purposes of this article, a service is counted when it is administered directly by a student union or in partnership with another on-campus organization. Referrals, funding of non-campus-based services, and non-structured occasional programs do not count, nor do pages that function as repositories of information. A service should be easily searchable on the union’s website, so as not to be difficult to find from a student’s perspective.
Most frequent services
Unsurprisingly, a healthcare plan is offered almost universally — 98% of student unions in the study provide a health and dental plan for their students.
The next most popular service is social and entertainment facilities, offered by 86% of student unions. These can include a student union building, a campus bar or restaurant, or any kind of space where students can gather. No surprises here, as most student unions have dedicated buildings or offices and are thus able to offer spaces for their members.
With food insecurity among students on the rise, student unions are filling the gap by running food banks, with 66% offering some kind of structured and recurring free food service.
As mentioned, most student unions have their own buildings, and 62% use them to rent out rooms for students who need space for meetings or events.
Many unions offer a form of counselling service, sometimes branded as a student rights office, to help students navigate university rules and bureaucracy, ensuring no one is left behind when dealing with administration or professors. 58% of unions in the study offered this service.
The last two services offered by a majority of student unions are financial aid in the form of grants, awards, and/or scholarships, provided by 56% of unions; and a transit pass, offered by 54%.
Services that could have been more frequent
Before moving on to the rarest services, it is worth noting the category of services one might expect to be common, but which in reality are not offered by many student unions. Any kind of hands-on academic help is relatively rare — tutor registries or tutoring services are offered by just 6% of unions, and textbook aid by 16%. Tax clinics are hosted by only 14% of student unions, which is surprisingly lower than legal clinics, offered by 24%. The reasons behind this gap merit a separate study, but could include lack of demand, funding, or logistical challenges.
Rarest services
Services provided by 10% or fewer student unions in the study are counted as the rarest. Some are quite specific to their campus; others could be replicated anywhere. Read and judge for yourself.
The rarest services are an indication of ingenuity and resourcefulness of student unions that seek to identify the needs of their students and fill the gaps where possible. They are also proof that a service need not have a large budget to address a real problem. Whether a service is more common or less common does not make it more or less legitimate. What services students need is ultimately a question for students themselves, and their unions’ democratic processes, to answer. In the coming months, we will be publishing more data on student union services and how they impact students’ lives.
