For post-secondary policy nerds like me, last week was pretty exciting. On Tuesday, HEQCO released two new studies by Ross Finnie on the post-secondary participation rates of underrepresented groups in Ontario, and the next day the University of Western Ontario highlighted a new study comparing the effects of parental income on post-secondary participation between Canada and the United States. All three studies use the same data source, namely the first four cycles of Statistics Canada’s Youth in Transition Survey which tracked students who were 15 years old in 2000 for six years.
For those of you don’t have the time to read the combined 164 pages, the basic summary is that low-income students, first generation students, rural students, Aboriginal students, and students with disabilities continue to be underrepresented in post-secondary education, particularly university. One of the more interesting takeaways, though, was the comparison of Ontario results with the other provinces and the United States. The graph below details the differences in the university participation gap compared to the control population of the five underrepresented groups from the HEQCO study. The blue bars control for a variety of factors, including income, parental education, high school location, immigration status, Aboriginal status, and disabilities. The purple bars go further and take into account average high school grades, PISA reading scores and a number of “scale factors” (including high school engagement, self-perception, social support and parental behaviour).
Generated from results in: Finnie, R., Childs, S., & Wismer, A. (2011). Under-Represented Groups in Postsecondary Education in Ontario: Evidence from the Youth in Transition Survey. Toronto: Higher Education Quality Council of Ontario.
There are several very interesting results. The low-income participation gap is smaller in Ontario than in the rest of Canada, and virtually disappears when the high school grades, PISA scores and scales are taken into account. The four other groups, namely first generation, rural, Aboriginal and disabled students, have participation gaps in Ontario that are higher than the rest of Canada and that remain even with the other variables included. The gap for Aboriginal students is particularly large, with the difference between Ontario standing at more than 7 times that of the rest of Canada. In contrast, French minority students and students with a single parent, groups which were also included in the studies, have significant participation gaps, but the gaps become statistically insignificant when factors like income and parental education are taken into account.
The study from UWO essentially confirms the findings with regards to low-income students and compares these results to the United States. It finds that after controlling for family background and PISA scores, Canada has a smaller low-income participation gap than the United States. The study attempts to use tuition and financial aid considerations to explain the gaps, but I think the true explanation is a more complex web of public policy differences, including university admissions, tuition, financial aid, social assistance programs, and primary and secondary education. The study also has one of the better analyses I’ve seen of the direct relationship between family income and non-repayable financial aid in Ontario. While the data pre-dates several new non-repayable grants in Ontario and changes to tuition levels between 2005 and 2010 (making the absolute numbers less useful), the overall slope has likely not changed significantly. As noted in the study, one of the main differences between the Canadian and U.S. systems is the existence of a minimum student contribution in Canada, which has all students contribute around $3,000 to their education. It also illustrates nicely the regressive effect of tax credits, as the study explains: “The modest increases in aid at very low income levels in Canada are due to the inability of very low income families to fully benefit from education tax credits.”
Source: Belley, P., Frenette, M., & Lochner, L. (2010). Post-Secondary Attendance by Parental Income: Comparing the U.S. and Canada. London, Ontario: University of Western Ontario, CIBC Working Paper # 2010-3.
While the use of high school grades and PISA scores was helpful in each of these studies in teasing out the effects of academics on participation gaps, I worry about the way these effects could be misjudged when making policy decisions, particularly regarding financial and motivational barriers. Students in Ontario with a family income below $50,000, for example, were determined to have a 15% gap in university participation (35% versus 50% for family incomes above $50,000). When other characteristics, such as parental education, geographic location and Aboriginal status, were taken into account, the gap closed to 7%. Then when the student’s high school grades were taken into consideration, the gap closed to 3%. Finally, when PISA scores and scales were included, the gap disappeared to a statistically insignificant 0.5%.
I suppose it is comforting to know that two students with the same grades, reading ability, academic preparation, parental guidance, and self-confidence go to university at similar rates regardless of being above or below the $50,000 income threshold. But many have used this finding to argue that income is not a real barrier and that current tuition and financial aid systems are adequate, which I think largely oversimplifies the complex relationships between financial, informational and motivational barriers to post-secondary education. For example, are these students making decisions early in their lives that they can’t afford to go onto university and therefore settling for lower grades, lower PISA scores and exhibiting lower engagement with their academics? Should we be worried that grades and achievement are highly correlated with family income? I would argue that much of the qualitative work that has been done in this area emphasizes just how complicated the real picture is.
These studies also prove just how valuable the YITS survey is as a source of data, but it is also somewhat dated. All of these studies use the first four cycles of YITS-A from 2000 to 2006, and tracked students who (for the most part) entered PSE around 2003. In the years that followed, there have been a multitude of changes to tuition, financial assistance programs, and early outreach initiatives across Canada. With the federal government’s decision to cancel any future cohorts of the Youth in Transition Survey, the effect of these changes on specific underrepresented groups may be left largely unknown. HEQCO’s current plan to develop an Ontario-based longitudinal survey will go a long way to filling this gap and cannot come soon enough.
Dr. Finnie summarized the importance of the studies well, stating that “the policy implications are potentially far-reaching.” In addition to recommending we do more to address financial constraints, he argued more attention should be devoted to “improving student motivation and performance at (or before) the high school level, providing better information to students and their families about the costs and benefits of education from an early age and carrying out other interventions targeted at the early-rooted and family-based factors that seem to be the most important determinants of access.” The province’s support for the community-based program Pathways to Education is already working along these lines and has shown tremendous success. These studies confirm, however, that more still needs to be done, particularly through the primary and secondary school curriculum to reach far more students.
In summary, the three studies add to the growing body of Canadian work on underrepresented groups in post-secondary education and prove particularly insightful in comparing Ontario with different jurisdictions. The fact that Ontario compares favourably with the rest of Canada and the U.S. when it comes to low-income participation is valuable to know – though no jurisdictional comparison, caveat or control makes me feel content with the fact that the highest income quartile participates in university 60% more often than the lowest income quartile. We also still have a ways to go on improving post-secondary access for other underrepresented groups, where Ontario ranks further behind neighbouring jurisdictions. The Ontario government has made considerable effort to encourage post-secondary participation among underrepresented group, and students look forward to continuing to collaborate on next steps to closing these participation gaps and building a more equitable Ontario.
-Sam Andrey
OUSA Director of Research & Policy Analysis
