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Survey of Canadian Career College Students - March 2008

4. Student Pathways to Private Career Colleges

4.1 Are PCCs Students' First Choice?

Private career college students' preferred educational route appears to be college, either private (80%: current 72% or another private 8% institution) or public (12%). Among students surveyed, approximately three-quarters (72%) indicated that their current private career college was their institution of choice. Few students (8%) indicated that they would have preferred to attend university.

In British Columbia, slightly fewer students (69%) indicated that they are currently attending their institution of choice. More students preferred to attend university (9%) or another private career college (9%). Conversely, in the Prairies, significantly more students (74%) felt that they were attending their preferred institution.

Figure 4-1

Numbers may not add up to 100% due to rounding.
n=13,506 (weighted data excludes don't know/no response)

4.2 Impact of Income on PSE Pathway

Students with household incomes of less than $20,000 per annum and incomes of $20,000 to $40,000 per annum do not differ significantly from each other. These two income groups do, however, differ from those in the household income bracket of $40,000 or above. Students coming from families with household incomes of $40,000 or more are more likely to:

Take post-secondary education immediately after completing high school (45% vs. 33% and 36%);
Enter programs longer than 18 months in duration (21% vs. 17% and 16%);
Not have financial issues as a barrier to direct entry into PSE after high school (24% vs. 29% and 29%);
Enter programs with total tuitions exceeding $20,000 (18% vs. 13% and 12%);
Completed high school in Canada (84% vs. 79% and 74%); and
Not apply for a student loan (45% vs. 61% and 56%).

While students from this household income bracket more often have a high school diploma, they are not more likely to have obtained a PSE degree prior to entering their current program. In fact, students from the lower income brackets are more likely to have prior PSE, while those in the higher income bracket are more commonly employed at the time of the survey and three months prior to the start of their program.

4.3 Educational Pathways of Private Career College Students

Students take a wide variety of pathways into PSE and specifically into a program provided at a private career college. In total 40% of students entered post-secondary education, although not necessarily the private career college they were attending when surveyed, immediately after leaving high school. The remaining 60% took a break between high school completion and post-secondary.

Students in Media/Information Technology (31%) and Trades/Technical Training (34%) were the least likely to enter PSE immediately after high school and those in Other (52%) programs most likely to enter PSE directly after high school.

Table 4-2
Time of Entry into Post-Secondary Education

Figure 4-3 outlines the pathways taken by students from high school to a private career college. Approximately one-quarter (24%) of the students or 3,256 students could not be classified under any of the 6 pathways since they provided insufficient information on one or more of the questions used to classify the post-secondary pathways. The remaining students are classified under one of the 6 educational pathways shown below.

Students currently enrolled in a private career college tend to take multiple breaks between high school and post-secondary education or between post-secondary degrees. As shown in Figure 4-3, 57% of students enter the private career college system from high school, with or without time off in between.

Of the 57%, 15% (13% in current program and 2% in previous program) go directly into the private PSE system from high school and the remaining 42% enter after a break ranging anywhere from one to over ten years. Of those who enter private PSE directly from high school, 6% are now in their second program at a private career college and 13% are in their first program at a private career college. Among those that are taking their second program at a private career college, 2% attended their first program directly out of high school and 4% attended after a break.

Figure 4-3

4.4 Barriers to PSE Entry

Students who did not transition directly from high school to a post-secondary program were asked to identify what barrier(s) (if any) prevented them from making such a direct transition. Students most commonly did not begin post-secondary studies immediately out of high school due to uncertainty about their career (44%), financial barriers (27%), personal or family issues (20%), and a lack of interest (18%). Regions differed in the degree to which various barriers impacted students.

Students in Atlantic Canada (51%) and Quebec (57%) more commonly indicated that they had not entered PSE immediately after high school because they were undecided about their career, while students in Ontario were less likely to be undecided about their career (35%) and more commonly had financial (30%) or personal/ family (23%) issues.
Students in the Prairie provinces more commonly cited lack of interest (22%), career indecision (49%) and the need for academic upgrading (12%) as barriers to post-secondary education.
Increased competition for post-secondary programs may be reflected in the statistically significant higher proportion of students in British Columbia indicating that they had not immediately entered PSE due to the need for academic upgrading (10%), wait lists for programs (3%), and a lack of desired programs available in their area (5%).

Table 4-4
Barriers to Pursuing Post-Secondary School Education
Immediately after High School Completion

Reason	Response %
Career undecided	44%
Financial issues	27%
Personal/Family issues	20%
Not interested	18%
Required academic upgrading	8%
Entrance requirement or not accepted into any programs applied for	3%
Desired program was not available in my area	4%
Wait-listed for desired program	2%
Illness	1%
Employer unable to provide leave or flexibility for part-time study	1%
Employer unable to sponsor me in a registered apprenticeship program	1%
Disability supports/accommodations not accessible	1%
No Response	6%
Numbers will not add up to 100% due to multiple responses. n=8,082 (weighted data includes don't know/no response)

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Date Modified:: 2008-04-07

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