Postsecondary Education - Participation and Dropping Out: Differences Across University, College and Other Types of Postsecondary Institutions - ARCHIVED

The analysis for this report is based on data from the Youth in Transition Survey (YITS). The survey was designed by Human Resources and Social Development Canada and Statistics Canada. YITS is a longitudinal survey, which collects information on educational and labour market pathways of a sample of young Canadians in the 18 to 20 age group in 1999. Respondents were asked to provide a range of information on their education and employment experiences as well as information on their personal characteristics. They were interviewed four times since the implementation of the survey, in 2000, 2002, 2004 and 2006. In this report, the data used are from the first four cycles and describe where they stood in their school to work pathway in December 2005 when they were 24 to 26 years of age.

This report is a follow-up of a previous study of postsecondary participation (Shaienks and Gluszynski, 2007) which found that the overall postsecondary dropout rate was 15%. That rate however, differs across all types of institution and by demographic, family and school characteristics. This paper explores the impact of those characteristics on participation, graduation and dropping out of different types of postsecondary institution.

Three new variables were developed to account for the type of institution attended by the student and the status in each of them. The university status, the college status and the other postsecondary status allow us to determine independently the outcome of participation in the different types of institution and profile graduates, continuers and especially drop outs according to their specific characteristics.