The Government of Alberta recently released their survey of Alberta’s post-secondary graduates that they do once every two years and there is as always some interesting facts about the class of 2008 that you might not have known. You can download it for yourself here (PDF), or just grab the highlights here (also a PDF).
A trend that has continued is the background of graduates parents – with 70% of post-secondary graduates having parents who attended post-secondary education at some level. This is a strong trend that has held true for many decades and helps give some background at what needs to be overcome in order to increase our post-secondary participation rate – how do we get more Albertans whose parents have no post-secondary experience to enroll in university, college or in a technical institute?
We also saw that the population of First Nations, Métis or Inuit graduates remains shockingly low, with only 3% of graduates considering themselves as Aboriginal. Comparing that to general aboriginal population in Alberta of 6% and considering how young our aboriginal demographic is it is clear we have a lot of work to do.
Those who graduate tend to be satisfied with their education, with 91% satisfied with the overall quality of their educational experience. They think it is worth it too, with 86% believing it was worth the financial cost to them and their families. There were two worrying but expected trends with that number – the higher a graduate’s income the more likely they thought it was worth the financial cost, and the lower a graduate’s debt the more likely they thought it was worth it.
Delving deeper into student debt, we see that 44% of undergraduates received government student loans and that 30% of those borrowed more than $25,000. Graduates from our research universities borrowed on average $22,195. And not everybody borrowed only from the government, with 34% borrowing from private sources like banks or their family. Altogether 63% of undergraduates graduated with student debt.
Most received a scholarship at some point to help offset those costs and debt. Indeed, 79% of undergraduates received a scholarship – likely due in large part to Alberta’s fantastic Alexander Rutherford scholarship program and other needed scholarships – but most awards were less than $5,000 which won’t even cover tuition for their first year.
Another interesting fact springing from the survey was how many of our graduates remain in Alberta. Most don’t relocate after graduation at all – 70% of graduates from our research universities stayed in their community. Of the 30% that moved most stayed in Alberta.
Looking over the survey results it is important that we stress who it surveyed and more importantly who it did not. As a survey of graduates of our institutions it is important to stress that this leaves out those who leave post-secondary before graduation and those who never go in the first place. When determining what we are doing right and where we need to improve our system it is just as important we take into account those who we are not serving well as much as those who have received their degree.
Finally, it was interesting to see where graduates, upon reflection, got the best information in deciding what program and institution to attend. The most popular answer? Institutions’ websites, followed closely by parents and family. We can’t provide a link to your family, but if you are interested in checking out our institutions click on one of the links below.
University of Alberta
University of Calgary
University of Lethbridge
The Wildrose Alliance just announced their advanced education policy at the University of Calgary, and you can also see it here online.
This is the first of what will be many announcements about post-secondary education leading up to the next election. It is evident that post-secondary education is a important issue for many Albertans, and that is reflected not just in today’s announcement but opinion polls and government policy as well.
The Wildrose Alliance has quickly made a mark in Alberta politics and while it remains to be seen what will happen between now and the next election it is exciting to see them advocating for changes they believe would improve access to post-secondary education for Albertans.
Within their announcement is a call to limit tuition to inflation, end assumed parental contribution as a resource in student loan applications and increasing debt forgiveness, all CAUS policies.
As a non-partisan organization, our excitement goes well beyond today’s announcement as we look forward to working with all parties and seeing what ideas everyone is going to bring to the table in regards to increasing access and affordability.
Beyond the Wildrose Alliance, you can see all of the main political parties policies on post-secondary education below:
- Alberta Liberal Party
- Alberta NDP
- PC Alberta (PDF, go to page 11)
- Wildrose Alliance
The Government of Alberta released the annual reports for all 24 ministries including Alberta Advanced Education and Technology today. The report shows that Alberta is still making the grade when it comes to increasing access to Alberta’s post-secondary system.
Albertans were surveyed on whether they were satisfied that “adult Albertans can access education or training” and 25% of Albertans said no, which is up from 21% just one year ago. Alberta continues to have the lowest post-secondary participation rate in Canada, with only 17% of Albertans between 18-34 years old attending a post-secondary institution. Next door in British Columbia it is 23%.
Those who do get in are graduating with unacceptable levels of debt, with the average debt-to-income ratio well above the target set in the 2009 Business Plan.
Alberta has a plan to increase the number of spaces by 14,445 spaces by 2019, and for many those spaces cannot come quickly enough. It is also important that those spaces are well-funded, of the highest quality and are accessible and affordable to all qualified Albertans.
CAUS has a clear set of priorities intended to improve our participation rate and increase access to our universities. Those priorities are:
- Regulating non-instructional fees;
- Putting the Tuition Fee Policy into legislation;
- Increasing base operating grants to institutions;
- Increasing grants, bursaries and scholarships; and
- Making elections more accessible to students.
If you want to read the 2009/10 Alberta Advanced Education and Technology annual report you can download it here and if you want to read more about CAUS’ priorities in addressing these concerns you can look here.
The CAUS proposal to end provincial tuition and education tax credits included in our budget recommendations has received a fair amount of attention lately. That might make some sense – after all it is not everyday that students call for the government to end a program.
You can read the Edmonton Journal article on the subject or check out our budget submission for more details, but we are just as interested in what you think.
We believe that few students, if any, come to university just because they receive a tax credit. But what we do know is that many Albertans never go to post-secondary education because of financial reasons. Alberta has the third highest tuition in the country so it is no wonder that some are being left out because of money – in fact Alberta has the lowest post-secondary participation rate in Canada.
What is key to our proposal is that up-front grants represent the best way to get students into university, to reduce those barriers that Albertans find when trying to get a degree. Tax credits may be nice when you are filling out your return in March but do little to pay your tuition when you need it in September.
Shifting resources from tax credits to up-front grants is only a part of our proposal to re-invest in post-secondary education. Alberta’s universities and their graduates are where Alberta’s future prosperity lies and we need to make a priority in the upcoming provincial budget.
Yesterday’s provincial budget made it clear that students were going to be the ones footing the bill for cuts in post-secondary education through increased student debt. Coming down at the same time as universities ponder dramatic tuition increases and new mandatory fees students, the cuts to scholarships, bursaries and grants will be felt hard on campus.
“A cut to bursaries and grants is a slap in the face – thousands of students are facing the prospect of few summer jobs and now are given little more than additional debt by the province,” said Beverly Eastham, chair of the Council of Alberta University Students (CAUS) and VP External at the University of Alberta Students’ Union. “We are especially disappointed in cutting the Student Loan Relief Benefit, the most important tool we have to limit student debt in this province. That is going to send those debt levels through the roof – expect to see graduates with as much as $50,000 or more in debt.”
The 2010 provincial budget made several unexpected cuts to Alberta’s student financial aid system, including:
- Eliminating the $34.5 million Student Loan Relief Benefit, which limited the amount of debt a student could graduate with in Alberta
- Cutting grants and bursaries to $13.5 million, a cut of 55% from last year
- Reducing scholarships by $2.9 million from last year
In order to compensate for these changes, the government is increasing student loan disbursements by $37.6 million through increasing loan limits, living allowances and other policy changes, although much of that may flow directly to institutions in the form of tuition increases and new fees.
“Students have been hit hard by this economic downturn and can ill afford to see their supports crumbling away. This is a budget that hurts students,” concluded Eastham.
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