Introduction and Literature

1. High School Student Characteristics, Barriers and Access to Post-Secondary Education in Canada: Evidence from the YITS Ross FinnieUniversity of Ottawa Richard E. MuellerUniversity of LethbridgeAndrew WismerThe MESA Project (University of Ottawa)

2. Introduction and Literature • What are the family background factors behind attending PSE? • What are the factors related to not attending? (arguably more important) • Emphasis is on financial factors – these are what have historically been studied as related to PSE access • Importance of financial factors tends to decrease once other important correlates are added to the analsysis

3. Data and Models • YITS-A, Cycle 4 – respondents are 21 years old • Access models – multinomial logit with three outcomes: have not attended, have “touched” college or “touched” university • Barrier models – multinomial logit with the following outcomes: (1) have accessed, (2) no PSE aspirations, (3) a variety of barriers for PSE aspirants but who have not attended

4. PSE Access – Descriptive • Usual findings – higher university attendance among females, those from urban areas, living in the Maritimes, from two-parent families, vismins, immigrants, families with higher parental education and income

5. Figure 1a: Parental Income, Parental Education and University AccessUniversity Access by Family Income, over Parental Education

6. Figure 1b: Parental Income, Parental Education and University Access, cont.University Access by Parental Education, over Family Income

7. PSE Access – Multinomial Logit Estimates • Similar results to the descriptive statistics • Coefficients tend to be most significant for university rather than college attendance • Fitted values of access probabilities as related to parental income and parental education shown for ease of exposition

8. Figure 3a: Access to University Fitted Values – Parental Income

9. Figure 3b: Access to University Fitted Values – Parental Education

10. Barriers to Access – Descriptive • By age 21, • 25% have not accessed PSE (M 31.2%, F 18.7%) • 5.8% have no PSE aspirations (M 8.1%, F 3.4%) • 10.7% have aspirations & no barriers (M 14.6%, F 6.6%) • only 5.5% claim finances as at least one barrier (even) • Quebecers most likely to have no aspirations, and Albertans most likely to claim financial barriers • Rural students only slight more likely to claim financial barriers (6.5% vs. 5.2%) as are those from low income and low education families

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20. Barriers to Access – Multivariate • Most likely to have accessed by age 21: • those from Ontario and Atlantic Canada • vismins (including immigrants) • those with higher parental education and income • Those with no aspirations: • parental income and education are negatively related, but not as important (makes sense) • Financial barriers: • somewhat higher for low-income, but lower for immigrants and vismins

21. ↑ $50k ≈ ↓2% (M) ↓ 4% (F) 21

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23. Financial Barriers and Loans • Can better loans increase participation rates? The upper bound would be 5.5% in our sample. • Reasons for not having a student loan (among this 5.5%): • 78.1% said not needed (88.2% of those with no barriers) – suggests some other financial barrier (e.g., high opportunity cost or low perceived benefits?) • 4.9% not willing to borrow & 8.9% did not apply or other • 8.1% could not get a loan - suggests less than a 1 percentage point increase in participation possible (i.e., 5.5% x 8.1%)

24. Conclusions • Two parts – Access (who goes?) and Barriers (who doesn’t go?) • Access results are well known • Barrier results less so • Parental income and education less important for those who don’t want to go • only 5.5% of sample claim financial barriers and yet most claim they don’t need a loan – suggesting factors other than a liquidity constraint are at play

25. Thank you!