Aboriginal Peoples and Postsecondary Education in Canada.
Michael Mendelson, Caledon Institute for Social Policy, July 2006
Mostly relying on Statistics Canada data and the Aboriginal People survey, the research provides a good profile of Aboriginal peoples' participation in post-secondary education. The paper demonstrates the large obstacles facing the Aboriginal population, including lower income levels and lower secondary education levels.
University participation rates among Aboriginal people's has decreased, and Mendelson estimates that to close the participation gap, 10,000 additional Aboriginals would have be enrolled in colleges, and 30,000 in universities.
Access Denied: The affordability of post-secondary education in Canada.
Canadian Association of University Teachers (CAUT), September 2002
Link: www.caut.ca
Access Denied shows that post-secondary education is less affordable today than at any time in the last sixty years. The report examines changes in tuition fees from 1857 to 2002. When fees are adjusted for inflation, undergraduate university students today are paying more than at any other time in the past century, and six times what a student was charged in 1914.
The study measures how affordable university education is today compared with previous periods by plotting the number of hours of work (at an average carpenter's wage) it would take to pay for one year of tuition fees. By this account, it takes more hours of work to pay for tuition fees today than at any time since 1940.
According to the report, the decline in the affordability of professional programs since 1990 has been particularly steep. Law school tuition fees could be paid with 100 hours of manufacturing work in 1990, but today a total of 265 hours of work is needed. In 1990, one year of tuition fees in a dentistry program would have required 124 hours of work, compared to 512 hours today. For medical school, fees were equal to 118 hours of manufacturing work in 1990, and 425 hours in 2002.
At a Crossroads: First Results for the 18 to 20-Year-old Cohort of the Youth in Transition Survey.
Human Resources Development Canada and Statistics Canada, January 2002
Link: www.statcan.ca/english/IPS/Data/81-591-XIE.htm
This analysis of data from the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS) reveals that financial barriers are overwhelmingly the most common barriers to access for young people in Canada. Over 70 percent of high school graduates who had not gone on to post-secondary education because of barriers listed their financial situation as a primary obstacle. A similar percentage of respondents who had dropped out of a post-secondary program (71.4 percent) cited financial barriers as a primary reason for not continuing with their education.
The survey clearly demonstrates that money is the key factor determining access to post-secondary education, and contradicts claims by the Millennium Scholarship Foundation (MSF) that so called "non-financial" barriers are more important. MSF has attempted to misrepresent and downplay the results of the YITS in their own research reports.
Class of 2000: Profile of post-secondary graduates and student debt.
Statistics Canada, April 2004
Link: www.statcan.ca/english/IPS/Data/81-595-MIE2004016.htm
The results presented in Class of 2000 paint a worrying picture about the rapid growth of student debt in Canada during the late 1990s. For university graduates, student debt grew by an average of 30 percent between 1995 and 2000. The average debt for degree holders was $19,500. However, the study reports that for graduates who owe to both private and public sources, average debt is a stunning $32,200. Almost one in three indebted graduates carried more than $25,000 worth of loans in 2000.
The study also documented the burden of high student debt for a growing number of graduates. Almost one in four bachelor graduates reported difficulty in repaying their student loan, up from one in five graduates only five years earlier.
Class of 2000 reported on data gathered from the National Graduates Survey (NGS). Released every five years, the NGS studies graduates of degree and diploma programs who were not enrolled in further studies, including graduates of professional programs. In addition to data on student debt, the study also provides useful information on the demographic characteristics of graduates in 2000.
Distance to School and University Participation.
Statistics Canada, June 2002
Link: www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/020624/d020624b.htm
This study reveals that family income and distance to a university have a substantial affect on participation rates. The report shows that, outside commuting distance, students from high-income families were almost six times more likely to participate in university between 1995 and 1999 than were young people from lower-income backgrounds. According to the study, only three percent of students from low-income families living beyond commuting distance participated in university.
The existence of such a gap suggests that high education-related expenses and inadequate student financial aid have pushed university education beyond the reach of low and moderate-income people who need to relocate from outlying areas in order to attend university. Overall, one in five Canadians lived beyond commuting distance from a university in 1996. That figure rises to 52 percent for residents of Saskatchewan and to 42 percent for Newfoundland and Labrador residents.
Does it Pay to go Back to School?
Statistics Canada, Perspectives on Labour and Income (March 2006)
This study examines the benefits of adult retraining. Adult students are defined as persons who had worked for at least one year without being enrolled in studies prior to returning to school.
The report suggests that people who return to school as adults are more likely to enrol at non-university institutions. Close to 90 percent of post-secondary certificates obtained by adult students were from community colleges, trade, or vocational schools. People who participated in adult education and obtained a post-secondary certificate generally reported higher subsequent income than people who did not retrain, even after taking factors such as initial wages, occupation, and firm size into account.
Although younger workers who left work to seek post-secondary certification reported greater increases in their post-training income rates, taking those same factors into account, older workers gained a discernable increase in wages following post-secondary retraining. It was noted that the benefits to older workers of retraining were heavily concentrated among those workers who returned to their previous employer, whereas younger adults benefited more from changing employers following their retraining.
Effects of rising tuition fees on medical school class composition and financial outlook.
Canadian Medical Association Journal, 166 (8), April 16, 2002
Link: www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/166/8/1023
This study examines the family income background of students at Ontario medical schools between 1997 and 2000 and found that as tuition fees increased in Ontario, the proportion of students from families with incomes less than $40,000 decreased from 17.3 percent to 7.7 percent.
The study concludes that the large increases in tuition fees implemented by medical schools in Ontario are associated with changes in the medical student population. At Ontario medical schools, there are now fewer students from lower-income families and more students expecting to graduate with large debts. In this research, Ontario medical students also report that financial considerations have an increasing influence on their specialty choice and practice location.
Financing Canada's Universities & Colleges: How Ottawa and the provinces can fix the funding gap.
Canadian Association of University Teachers, Education Review, Volume 7, Number 5, August 2005
Link: www.caut.ca
This short quantitative research piece by the CAUT traces the decline of federal funding over the past fifteen years, and concludes that federal contributions to the provinces for post-secondary education are approximately $4 billion short of levels seen in the late 1970s. The CAUT prescribes a dedicated transfer payment for post-secondary education to be governed by a Post-Secondary Education Act.
Funding Postsecondary Education in Ontario: Beyond the Path of Least Resistance.
Hugh MacKenzie, December, 2004
Link: www.reviewrae.ca
This study examines the socioeconomic demographic of those claiming the tuition fee tax credit, which is a non-refundable 16 percent credit against income tax. The credit can be used on total tuition and ancillary fees paid in one year. Though the credit can be used by either the student, or the students' parents or grandparents, the tuition fee credit is an effective means by which to track who pays tuition fees relative to household income. MacKenzie also examines the rate of tax people pay under the current (relatively) progressive system of taxation.
This original research refutes the idea that publicly funded post-secondary education is subsidy to the rich, paid for by the poor. Unlike those who argue for higher tuition fees, Mackenzie carefully examines the overall distributional effect of tuition fees by examining both ways Canadians pay for post-secondary education: through the tax system and through user fees at source. When both sources are examined, the idea that low tuition fees for students are unfair to low-income students and low-income Canadians becomes a highly suspect and unsustainable argument.
Using tuition fee tax credit data, the study found that those earning above average income claimed less in tax credits than they contributed to the tax base. MacKenzie concludes that the progressive taxation system ensures that those who come from upper-income homes already pay a substantial premium for their education and other public services, precisely because they pay higher taxes for the same service. This point is vital because it obliterates the idea that lower tuition fees are a regressive transfer to the wealthy. A healthy system of progressive taxation ensures that low fees benefit everyone equally.
The Impact of Tuition Fees on University Access: Evidence from a large-scale price deregulation in professional programs.
Marc Frenette, Statistics Canada, September 2005
The most recent Statistics Canada study of access examines the effect of deregulated fees in professional programs. Not surprisingly the study confirms earlier studies that document a decline in access for middle- and low-income families. The study measures access on the basis of those who come from one of three homes: those in which neither parent has post-secondary education qualification, those with one parent with a degree or diploma, and those from a home in which one parent has a professional or graduate degree. There is some controversy as to whether this measure presents a complete picture of socioeconomic status. Prior studies relied on income data rather than education and no compelling rationale is given for using education instead of income.
Prior to the deregulation of tuition fees, students from high-income homes were over-represented in programs such as law, dentistry and medicine. However, the deregulation of fees has intensified the socio-economic stratification in these programs. The gap widened the most in Ontario, where fees have gone up by over 500% in some programs. For example, prior to the deregulation of tuition fees, those from home in which the parent had a bachelor's degree were only slightly less likely to enroll than someone from a home in which one parent had a professional or graduate degree. After the deregulation of fees in Ontario, those from a home with a professional or gradate degree were more than four times more likely to enroll. Provinces in which there were only moderate fee hikes or fee freezes had the most representative participation rates. Such findings go a long way toward undermining the case of those that argue that fee hikes have no effect on accessibility.
One of the study's more interesting findings is that access remained relatively steady for those from low-income homes despite large fees hikes. Though those from low-income homes are dramatically underrepresented in professional programs, the fact participation rates did not decline in the face of massive fee hikes is likely a result of scant student financial aid packages under which the very poorest students paid no fees. In most programs this accounts for fewer than 50 students. A second and more disturbing finding is that the participation rates of students from middle-income families plummeted. It is clear that those students who do not meet the very narrow definition of low-income used in most programs (those from homes of under $22,000 annual income) are being shut out of professional programs.
Getting Ahead in Life: Does your parents' education count?
Statistics Canada Education Quarterly Review, Volume 5, No. 1, 1998
This report documents the influence that parental education has on the likelihood that a child will attend college or university: 69 percent of those children from homes with a parent who completed a post-secondary education versus just 23 percent from homes in which they did not complete a secondary education. As Dr. Robert Allen notes in The Education Dividend, those who obtain a post-secondary education qualification earn, over a lifetime, 40 percent more than those without a post-secondary education. Though not surprising, this data confirms the cycle of exclusion for low-income families from post-secondary education.
The Part-Time Enrolments: where have all the students gone?
Torbin Drews and Herb O'Heron, Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada Research File, Volume 3, No. 2, May 1999
Link: www.aucc.ca/publications/auccpubs/research/research_e.html
This study examines declining part-time participation rates at Canadian universities during the 1990s and concludes "tuition fees" are estimated to account for approximately 60 percent of the observed drop in part-time enrolments. This conclusion is particularly interesting because its was published by the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada (AUCC), the Canadian university presidents organisation. The AUCC and its members often attempt to deny the impact of tuition fees on access when communicating with student representatives and the media.
Participation in Post-Secondary Education and Family Income.
Statistics Canada, The Daily, December 7, 2001 (erratum published January 9, 2002)
Link: www.statcan.ca/Daily/English/020109/d020109a
Link: www.statcan.ca:80/Daily/English/011207/d011207c.htm
This study assesses post-secondary participation rates by income between 1993 and 1998. The findings of the study are unequivocal: young adults from high-income families as more than twice as likely to attend university as those from low-income families. Only 18.8 percent of 18-21 year olds from families in the lowest income quartile attended university between 1993 and 1998, whereas 38.7 percent of those from the highest income quartile attended university during the same time period.
Paying the Price: The case for lowering tuition fees in Canada.
Canadian Association of University Teachers, Education Review, Volume 7, Number 1, February 2005
Link: www.caut.ca
In this study, the Canadian Association of University Teachers traces the rising share of post-secondary institutions' operating budgets comprised by tuition fees. The study notes that in 1980 public funding accounted for 84 percent of operating budgets, but by 2003 it had dropped 58 percent of university budgets. Not surprisingly, the share of tuition fees as a portion of operating budgets went from 13 percent in 1980 to 34 percent in 2003. In addition, the study clearly demonstrates that the rise in fees is tied directly to a sharp decline in base operating grants to colleges and universities.
This study offers much needed context for the specious claim that "low" tuition fees and current tuition fee freezes are to blame for declining quality and capacity at Canadian universities.
Is post-secondary Access More Equitable in Canada or the United States.
Statistics Canada, March 2005
Link: www.statcan.ca
This recent Statistics Canada study examines the differences in access and cost of post-secondary education between Canada and the United States. Currently in Canada, those in the top quarter of income are twice as likely to attend university as those in the bottom quarter. In the United States, those in the top quarter of income are four times more likely to pursue university education. The study adds to recent findings that in the United States those in the top quarter of income are six times more likely to obtain a university degree.
Most importantly, the study concluded that the higher cost of education in the United States is one of the key reasons for the disparity, citing the fact that the cost of "publicly funded universities is 31 percent higher in the United States". The study also suggests that the proliferation of higher fee, private universities in the United States is a key reason for the higher gap in attendance between the rich and the poor. This point is of particular interest in the debate over the deregulation of tuition fees. Many larger universities in Canada such as the University of Toronto, Queen's University, and the University of British Columbia have shown keen interest in the idea of "ivy league" tuition fees as a means of creating a more elitist system.
Report of the 1999 Survey of Medical Students.
University of Western Ontario Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics, May 1999
This study was conducted over a four-year period to determine the effect of deregulated tuition fees on accessibility. The study examines participation rates by socio-economic status and documented a dramatic decline in participation rates from low-income families by the fourth and final year of the study. 17.3 percent of students in medical school came from homes where family income was under $40,000. During that first year students were paying the regulated tuition fees of approximately $4000. By the fourth year of the study, when tuition fees had risen to over $10,000, only 7.7 percent of students hailed from homes of family income of less than $40,000. As a result of deregulated tuition fees, there was a 50 percent decline in the participation of low-income students.
This study is particularly important because it undermines the notion, parroted by most university presidents across the country, that high tuition fees will not exclude low-income students because 30 percent of tuition fee increases are allocated to increased student financial assistance. As this data makes clear, it is simply false to say that increases to student financial assistance will address the problem of accessibility when tuition fees rise.
Student Loans: Borrowing and Burden.
Ross Finnie, Education Quarterly Review, Vol.8, No. 4, 2002
This study examines incidence of debt, level of debt, repayment of debt and burden of debt based on data from the 1982, 1986, 1990 and 1995 National Graduate Surveys. The report's author often downplays the significance of growing debt levels, but some of the data presented in the study contradicts such an interpretation. Data tables used in this study show that the average student loan debt burden for female undergraduates tripled between 1982 and 1995.
Debt-to-earnings is calculated in this study by dividing the median average debt at graduation by the average annual rate of pay listed by respondents in their first National Graduate Surveys interview. Essentially, the study is looking at student debt as a percentage of annual rate of pay. The higher the ratio, the greater the debt burden it represents. Figures used in this study show that the debt-to-earnings ratio increased from 0.14 in 1982 to 0.38 in 1995 for male undergraduate students, and from 0.17 to 0.51 for female undergraduate students during the same time period. In other words, the average student debt for a female undergraduate in 1982 was equal to 17 percent of her first year of earnings after graduation. By 1995, average debt for a similar student had risen to 51 percent of her yearly earnings. To put this in perspective, a study done in the United States found that the average debt to earnings ratio for people who were forced to declare bankruptcy was 0.71 (or 71 percent of annual income).
Survey by the National Opinion Coalition (Vector Research Inc.)
In an opinion poll conducted in October of 2001, Vector Research polled Canadians about the reasons why they did not pursue a post-secondary education. The poll confirmed that financial constraints were the key criteria that excluded low income Canadians and reported that 46 percent of low-income Canadians said lack of money was the sole reason for not attending. For those from families of income over $100,000 lack money was reported by only 15 percent of respondents as a reason for not attending college or university. The poll was conducted with a sample of 1500 and is accurate within three percent age points 19 times out of 20.
The Tuition Trap.
Hugh MacKenzie.
Link: www.ocufa.on.ca
In The Tuition Trap, Hugh Mackenzie builds on his earlier paper prepared for the Rae Review, The Path of Least Resistance. In the Tuition Trap, Mackenzie looks at the socio-economic composition of Ontario families relative to their participation rates in college and university. What he found was that, as portion of taxes paid through the progressive tax system, no income group carries a greater share of the burden. This finding is critical because it points to another factual error in the argument that post-secondary funding is a net transfer of wealth from the poor to the wealthy. Although there are disparities in participation rates between low- and high-income Canadians, Mackenzie demonstrates empirically that it is false to claim that low-income families do not share in the benefit of a publicly funded system of post-secondary education. In doing so, he undercuts one of the primary arguments made by high tuition fee advocates like Bob Rae.
Mackenzie also mounts a decisive critique of a recent study from a conservative US think tank, the Educational Policy Institute. EPI's study claims that the primary obstacle facing low-income Canadians is a lack of information about the benefits of post-secondary education. EPI's Alex Usher makes this claim on the basis that low-income families tend to overestimate the cost of post-secondary education and underestimate the benefits. Mackenzie points out that the poll, originally done in 2002, was not designed to test the financial literacy of prospective students and their families, as Usher claims. Usher also misreads the study's own findings, according to MacKenzie. Based on the results, Ipsos Reid concluded the following: "No demographic variations in opinion are apparent for this issue [the price and benefit of post-secondary education]." Yet Usher's entire argument is based on a supposedly sharp difference in knowledge between high-and low-income Canadians. Mackenzie succinctly captures the quality of Usher's work when he concludes "There are significant technical problems with every step of this argument.The complacent conclusion does not follow from its carefully selected fact base."
University and College Affordability: How and why have fees increased?
Canadian Association of University Teachers, Education Review, Volume 3, Number 2, May 2001
Link: www.caut.ca
This study offers a comprehensive overview of the impact funding cuts and higher tuition fees have had on low-income families. The study charts a 25 percent decline in provincial and federal funding for post-secondary education between 1991 and 1998. During that same period tuition fees rose by over 125 percent and the average student debt increased from $8,000 in 1990 to $25,000 in 1998.
Most important the study quantifies the argument that "the impact of higher fees [is] most discernible in terms of exacerbating inequalities in access". Between 1991 and 1998 the real income and buying power of Canadians with the lowest 20 percent of after-tax income declined. Additionally, in 1991 families in this category would have to set aside 14 percent of their household income to pay tuition fees. By 1998 that amount had increased to 23 percent, an increase of over 60 percent coupled with a decline in buying power. This data is also confirmed by Statistics Canada's Education Quarterly Review in 1997 that reports that median family income in the 1990s had declined by five percent and the average employment income of those between 21 and 24 had fallen by 21 percent.
This data clearly demonstrates that tuition fee increases adversely affect low-income families and explain why it is preposterous to suggest that massive tuition fee hikes will not undermine access for low and modest income families.
Who Gets Student Loans?
Statistics Canada, Perspectives on Labour and Income (March 2006)
Focusing on people 18-24 years old, this study addresses several aspects of the Canada Student Loans Program (CSLP), including: how well student loans are targeted to low-income youth; the extent to which the amount of the loan provided reflects the individual student's level of financial need; and the consequences of taking parental income into account for students who are assessed as independent from their parents (not requiring a parental contribution). Québec, Nunavut, and the Northwest Territories were excluded from the analysis because they do not participate in the Program.
The report finds that 52 percent of full-time post-secondary students aged 18-24 whose parents earned less than $40,000 received a loan from the CSLP in 2000. By comparison, only 14 percent of students whose parents earned more than $80,000 received a public loan. More women students received CSLP loans than did their male counterparts (34 percent versus 29 percent). Women students who had a higher full-time post-secondary participation rate (38 percent versus 30 percent), and also students whose families immigrated to Canada after 1980 had a much higher CSLP take-up rate than students whose families have resided in the country longer (45 percent versus 31 percent), a difference largely attributed to income inequality: 58 percent of students from families that recently immigrated to Canada having a parental income of less than $40,000, compared to 29% of all other students whose parental income was below $40,000.
The study confirms that students from lower-income households have lower post-secondary participation rates. The enrolment rate for the highest family income bracket in 2000 was almost twice that of the lowest income bracket (51 percent versus 29 percent). A tremendous difference was also revealed in post-secondary participation rates among young people who live with their parents and those identified as independent (46 percent versus 17 percent).
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