Canadian Higher Education by the Numbers

If education were a product being sold on Amazon, would authorities intervene?

I’ve published more than a few education-related posts here. I’ve written about measuring the return on your tuition dollar and on what’s driving the crazy growth in overall higher education spending. But I haven’t yet turned my data-powered, space-laser-vision against the true costs of academic aspirations on students themselves - and on what that says about the society that raised and prepared those students.

Alternatives: the ones that got away

We’ll begin with what’s been trending on-campus for the past decades. No, I’m not referring to whichever recreational drugs are currently favored by students happily spending their student loans. I’m actually thinking about preference changes relating to the kinds of educational tracks they’re choosing.

“Non-tertiary” frameworks are educational programs that include trades apprenticeships and certifications in areas like business administration, medical laboratory technician, and early childhood education. Back in 1992, there were 1,190,811 Canadians enrolled in all post-secondary programs. Of those, 28 percent were in post-secondary, non-tertiary frameworks. By the fall of 2021, that number had fallen to less than 12 percent. In real numbers, that represents a drop of more than 125,000 students.

That decline surprised me. I guess I’ve been reading too many overly-optimistic articles online about how a great corner had been turned and young people were finally waking up to the opportunities waiting for them in the trades - and the opportunity costs presented by long and expensive university programs.

Now I could combine the non-tertiary numbers with the short-cycle tertiary programs definition that Statistics Canada added around 2001. But even that combined proportion fell from 33 percent of total post secondary students in 2000 to just 28 percent in 2021. “Short-cycle tertiary”, by the way, refers to two-year college programs like practical nursing and business accounting.

It’s true that the actual numbers of students in those combined program types rose this century by nearly 14 percent. But university enrollment rose by 33 percent over the same period. So there’s no escaping the fact that non four year programs are still losing ground. I think that’s a shame.

Graduates: beating the odds

One of the reasons I’m disappointed is that four year programs carry lots of expensive risk. For instance, Statistics Canada data tells us that those who graduate with bachelor’s degrees, do so on average within four and a half years.

But those would be the lucky ones. You see, only 62 percent of students in STEM programs will graduate within six years of initially enrolling in an undergraduate program. That means some 38 percent of students will either drop out and never graduate, or graduate having invested far more time and tuition than they’d expected.

The numbers here vary by province. Less than half of students in Newfoundland and Labrador and Saskatchewan graduate within six years. And less than 60 percent of those from PEI, New Brunswick, and Manitoba make the deadline.

If I manufactured expensive automobiles that, 38 percent of the time, either failed outright or required expensive out-of-warranty service, my business wouldn’t last long. That’s pretty much what’s happening when the product is higher education.

There’s another serious risk factor here. It seems that poor education-track choices and lack of long-term vision are destructive forces for students. Of those who change major during their time in university, only 12 percent will graduate within six years.

All of this suggests that:

• Secondary schools should be working harder to prepare their students for success in their post high school experiences

• Students and their parents should be far more realistic and practical in their planning

• Universities should be far, far more selective in their admissions policies

Priorities: who really counts

If the people who make decisions in the education industry genuinely believe that university is the best ticket at the box office to economic and social success, then there’s something I’d love to know. Why have they consistently provided inferior services to 50.5 percent of those entrusted to their care?

Who are those pathetic, underserved individuals? Males.

Between 2010 and 2021, an average of 58.5 percent of all Canadians enrolled in university in Canada were female. It doesn’t take a battle hardened statistician to figure out that that leaves just 41 percent of lecture hall seats for males. If this was an election, it would be an historic landslide.

What’s going on? Are women receiving preferential treatment from university admissions offices? Are women given better preparation in primary and secondary schools? Are women just innately smarter than men? All of the above? None of the above?

Here’s one more thought. It’s interesting that there have been no official public inquiries into the crisis, no additional government resources committed to solving the disparity, and no new equity standards imposed to correct the longstanding systemic imbalance.

Why not?