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Increasing Access to Postsecondary Education: Learning What Works in Canada

Increasing Access to Postsecondary Education: Learning What Works in Canada. Reuben Ford 17 April 2009 at American Educational Research Association annual meeting. Key messages.

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Increasing Access to Postsecondary Education: Learning What Works in Canada

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  1. Increasing Access to Postsecondary Education: Learning What Works in Canada Reuben Ford 17 April 2009 at American Educational Research Association annual meeting

  2. Key messages • Future to Discover (FTD) tests an early financial incentive, called Learning Accounts, worth $8,000 towards the cost of post-secondary education and an enhanced career education intervention called Explore Your Horizons. • Evaluation found both interventions were implemented consistently and with fidelity to original design. • Those in receipt of interventions reported the interventions would likely make a difference to their access to PSE. No access data yet. • Impact analysis so far provides inconsistent evidence that the interventions influence access to PSE via the hypothesized logic model, possibly stronger for key subgroups. More evidence in line with the logic model when the interventions are combined.

  3. The policy problem • High school students who could go on to access PSE are not doing so: 20-30 percent overall and higher among key sub-groups. • Problem could be due to: • anticipated unaffordability of PSE • lack of information about careers and relative benefits and costs of PSE • inaccurate information • inadequate preparation/ability to use information • Interventions: • Learning Accounts - Early guarantee of $8000 financial support to pursue PSE for NB students with family income below median • Explore Your Horizons - Enhanced early career education that includes PSE as part of post-secondary planning in Grades 10,11,12 in MB and NB

  4. Research questions • Do these interventions increase access to PSE • Overall? • For key subgroups (lower income, lower education background) • Is one or other or a combination of the two more effective? • Program logic models: Do interventions change whether, when and how students think about and plan for life after high school? • Some answers now • Principal Outcome: Does FTD result in more students accessing PSE than existing school programming alone? • Answers to come

  5. Learning Accounts

  6. Explore Your Horizons • Offered to cross-section of all students. • Six career education components: • Career Focusing (G10) • Lasting Gifts (G11) • Future in Focus (G12) • Post-secondary Ambassadors (G10-G12) • F2D Magazine (G10-G12) • Exclusive (members only) Web site (G10-G12) • 20 workshops totaling 40 hours over 3 years • Ordered by developmental sequence

  7. Results from implementation 2004-2008 Early Implementation Report Interim Impacts Report Final Report

  8. Recruitment and random assignment

  9. Learning Accounts implementation during high school (New Brunswick) • Participant and parent were notified by mail, supplemented by telephone if required, about the eligibility rules for accumulating instalments. • Notification took place early in Grade 10 in order for the long-term effects of the Learning Accounts offer to be fully tested • Adequate time and Future to Discover office support was offered to participants to enable them to take part in the intervention. 93 per cent of group signed declarations. • Eligibility for each instalment was verified. 92 per cent of cohort 1 group qualified for three instalments. • Notifications of Account balances were sent at the end of each year, along with reminders of ongoing eligibility status and withdrawal packages in Grade 12.

  10. Learning Accounts awareness during Grade 12 • Low awareness of holding a “Learning Account” in the anglophone sector (38.6 per cent) and the francophone sector (58.4 per cent). • Among those Learning Accounts participants who recalled that they had a Learning Account: • The total amount of $8,000 was recalled correctly by the majority both of francophone (82.9 per cent) and anglophone participants (77.3 per cent). • Three-quarters (76.6 per cent of Francophone participants, and 78.4 per cent of Anglophone participants) either agreed or strongly agreed with the statement: “I am more likely to get more education after high school because I have a Learning Account.”

  11. Combining EYH and LA (New Brunswick) • Adding EYH significantly increased awareness of Learning Accounts (by 10-25 percentage points) • Adding LA significantly increased average number of EYH workshops attended: • Adding LA significantly increased ever-attended EYH sessions (from 77-79 EYH only to 88-91 per cent EYH+LA) • Adding LA significantly increased the proportions reporting each type of EYH session was found very useful (by up to 15 percentage points) and reporting positive benefits from EYH (Agreeing “EYH made a difference in my life” by 23 percentage points)

  12. Interim impact analysis Logic model for interventions: • Increased orientation towards future activities • Increased awareness of post-secondary options • Increased aspirations to pursue PSE • Altered expectations about role of PSE • Increase in school attendance; lower school drop out rates • Change in peer groups • Increased graduation from high school • Change in perceived worth of PSE • Improved knowledge of PSE costs and financing • Increased certainty of meeting costs of PSE • Greater parent saving for PSE

  13. Short-term and intermediate impacts of Learning Accounts

  14. Short-term and intermediate impacts of Explore Your Horizons plus Learning Accounts

  15. Short-term and intermediate impacts of Learning Accounts

  16. Short-term and intermediate impacts of Explore Your Horizons plus Learning Accounts

  17. Short-term and intermediate impacts of Learning Accounts

  18. Short-term and intermediate impacts of Explore Your Horizons plus Learning Accounts

  19. Short-term and intermediate impacts of Learning Accounts

  20. Short-term and intermediate impacts of Explore Your Horizons plus Learning Accounts

  21. Final Impact analysis Principal outcome: • Successful enrollment and completion of the first year of chosen PSE program • [Program aim] Successful completion of the chosen PSE program Questions related to principal outcome: • Type and location of PSE? • Subgroup differences • Increase in PSE-related income? • Do students forego other non-PSE incomes?

  22. Reporting process • Final Impacts Report (2011) • Delivery of learning accounts • Final impacts, observed to end of (at most) 2nd post-secondary year • Benefit-cost analysis

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