Section 5: Discussion

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This paper set out to describe and analyze the timing of going on to pursue PSE for a sample of Canadian high school graduates. The Youth in Transition Survey was used to examine median delay times between high school graduation and the start of the first PSE program up until age 28, as well as the important covariates affecting this transition. Generally speaking, almost half of high school graduates started PSE within four months of graduating from high school, while by fifteen months, close to three quarters had started. These results are consistent with what other research using the same data have discovered. For instance, Tomkowicz and Bushnik (2003) found that close to 60% of high school graduates started PSE within 12 months, while Hango (2008) found that around 40% had started by 4 months. Slight differences between the current study and those published previously with these data are normal given differences in sample selection and the fact that the current study is the first to analyze these delay times using event history methods. The current findings are also quite similar to those presented in the United States. Bozick and DeLuca (2005) for example found that about 67% of high school graduates started their first PSE program within seven months of leaving high school. Meanwhile, information on deferral rates in the United Kingdom (UCAS 2010) suggests that each year between 2003 and 2010, about 7% to 7.5% of graduates deferred entry for one year into UK institutions of higher education.¹

The results can be summarized into essentially five main areas: structural, time use, PSE enrolment, attitudes and aspirations, and peer effects.

First, factors related to the structure of the education system proved to be influential. For example, a descriptive life table analysis shows that most young adults go on to PSE during those months that appear to correspond to normative start dates, i.e., in the autumn. Chart 1 showed that PSE start rates increased much faster around the 3- to 4-month mark, the 15- to 16-month mark and the 27-to 28-month mark, points that roughly correspond to the autumn of the year when high school graduates left school, the autumn of the year after they left school (12 months plus 3 or 4 months), and then in the following autumn (24 months plus 3 or 4 months). Thus, even though young adults are making the decision to delay or to go directly to PSE after high school, they remain bound by the structure and deadlines of post-secondary institutions. Therefore, some degree of planning is necessary if they desire to return to the education system. For instance, if a high school graduate decides not to go to university in the autumn of the year they graduate, then they will have to start planning for their return to school several months later as their application for autumn enrolment will likely be due between January and July, depending on the institution. Also, there is the issue of 'deferral' of a program. Most universities, for instance, allow accepted students to defer their start date for a semester or for an entire year. Undoubtedly, high school graduates who decide to take a gap year and who have already been accepted to a PSE program likely approach their time out of school differently than those who have not been accepted. The former's future is more clearly defined and, as a result, they may be able to plan their gap period activities somewhat better than high school graduates who have not yet been accepted into a PSE program. These are simply hypotheses at this point since the data necessary to measure these effects were not available for the current study.

Related to the structure of the education system was the finding that high school graduates from Quebec and the Atlantic Provinces had lower median delay times than the average, while high school graduates from Ontario and the West had longer delay times. The effect in Quebec is the most obvious due to the CEGEP system which requires attendance for subsequent university enrolment. Thus, on average, Quebec high school graduates enter PSE at earlier ages than the rest of the country, simply because of the structure of the educational system in Quebec. Also, tuition fees have generally been lower in CEGEPs and Quebec universities and as a result, fewer youth likely had to delay PSE attendance for financial reasons. Similar results were reported by Tomkowicz and Bushnik (2003) who found that, when compared to high school students from Ontario, youth from Quebec were more likely to go to PSE within one year, whereas youth from Alberta, Manitoba and Newfoundland were more likely to wait more than one year.

Second, several of the findings reported here are associated more generally with issues related to time use during adolescence. For example, factors that appear to pull high school students away from their studies or that inhibit further study outside of school often have a negative impact on the pace with which they go on to post-secondary studies. One of the most influential was working in high school, but only at very high levels. High school graduates who worked more than 20 hours a week had a much lower chance of entering PSE. These results are quite robust when we consider that they are in accordance with other Canadian sources using the same data, but somewhat different definitions of gap (Tomkowicz and Bushnik 2003; Hango and de Broucker 2007). Moreover, this corresponds to the difficulties young adults face attempting to combine academic and employment-related behaviour (Marsh and Kleitman 2005).

A further activity that can divert time and attention away from academic pursuits is extracurricular activities. The effects on education vary, however, depending on the activity and whether or not it is organized through the school (Darling 2005; Eccles et al 2003). The results reported here are consistent with the literature. On the one hand, participating in many hours (from 4 to 8 or more) of extracurricular activities per week that were organized by the school led to a shorter duration between high school graduation and the start of PSE. On the other hand, participating in a high frequency of extracurricular activities each week that were not organized by the school led to a delay in the commencement of PSE. These results correspond with those found by Broh (2002) and Chambers and Schreiber (2004) in the United States. They found that activities that required more commitment to school and that were more organized led to better educational outcomes than those activities that required less commitment and were less organized.

Third and not surprisingly, factors affecting the possibility of enrolment in PSE had an effect on the timing of PSE enrolment as well. For instance, marks are one of the most important factors determining access to PSE; it was found here as well that higher marks sped up the transition to PSE for young adults who had graduated from high school. The effect remained very robust in the presence of all other controls. This finding is in line with those of Tomkowicz and Bushnik (2003) and Bozick and DeLuca (2005). The effect of poor marks is also demonstrated by the result that youth who state that marks will be a barrier to educational goals had a much lower chance of attending PSE.

Also important for eventual PSE attendance is the socioeconomic position of the family which, in the present analysis, was measured using parental education and number of siblings, the latter being used as a proxy for fewer resources being available in larger families for each child. Young adults who had parents who had graduated with a PSE diploma or degree had a much greater chance of going to PSE themselves compared to young adults whose parents achieved less than high school. Bozick and Deluca (2005) found very similar effects in the United States using the National Education Longitudinal Study (NELS). The number of siblings proved to be an important finding as well in that, for each sibling added to the household, the chance of pursuing PSE declined. This effect ties in with the more general literature on resource dilution and educational attainment (see Downey 1995). Equally strong was the relationship between the youth's perception of how financial difficulties may subvert their academic goals. Young adults in this sample who felt that finances would negatively impact their academic aspirations had a much lower chance of going to PSE.

Fourth, factors related to attitudes and aspirations toward education in general proved to be important for the timing of going on to PSE. Generally, it was found that higher educational aspirations led to a greater chance of going to PSE. The effect was found for parental aspirations as well as for aspirations of the young adults themselves. Hango and de Broucker (2007) also found parental expectations to be important for whether there was a gap after high school, but these effects were contingent on whether the high school graduate eventually received a university degree. The current findings do not take final education level into account, however. With regard to the effect of the youth's educational aspirations, it is not surprising, given the link between academic aspirations and educational attainment (Hagan, MacMillan and Wheaton 1996), that youth with high aspirations do not delay PSE attendance as long as youth with lower aspirations.

Fifth, effects related to peers were found to be robust across all models. Similar to Tomkowicz and Bushnik (2003), there was a strong negative relationship between the timing of PSE and having few close friends who planned to go to PSE themselves — 26% of youth who delayed one year or more had some, few or no close friends planning on going to PSE, while the comparable percentage for youth who went within one year was 16%. Similarly, the median delay for high school graduates with some, few or no close friends going to PSE was 15 months, compared to 3 months if most or all close friends planned to go to PSE. These findings are consistent with other research that examines the effect of peers on educational aspirations and behaviour more generally (Ryan 2000; Brooks 2003).

Residential mobility is often thought to negatively affect education-related outcomes (Pribesh and Downey 1999; Swanson and Schneider 1999). The driving mechanism may range from a loss of important relationships (Coleman 1988), stress (Haveman, Wolfe and Spaulding 1991) or the impact of new peer groups for mobile adolescents (South, Haynie and Bose 2007). The current finding that the chance of starting PSE declines with each new high school attended fits in with this prior literature. However, given the structure of the current data and measures, it is impossible to pinpoint exactly why changing high schools lowers the chance of attending PSE. Regardless of reason, the robust relationship between changing schools and the timing of the start of PSE for high school graduates indicates that it is an important control measure.

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Notes

1. These deferral rates are admittedly somewhat different; however, no comparable published figures similar to those using YITS in Canada or NELS in the United States are available from the United Kingdom (Jones 2004).