A bit about our advisory program.
You Can Go is our service delivery component at CPSAP. Through You Can Go, our access workers help young people explore the range of post-secondary educational opportunities that are available, decide what programs and get information on funding options that might be a good fit, and ease their transitions into PSE programs if they are successful in gaining admission. In each city, programs are linked to local colleges, universities, technical schools, businesses, and community organizations—the programs are anchored in their communities, and tailored to their particular needs.
Here are some of our success stories so far…
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Research on post-secondary access issues in Canada.
During its tenure, the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation sponsored and published a great deal of invaluable research about all aspects of post-secondary education, including access issues.
You might be familiar with some of these reports already, but there are some real gems in here, and a little refresher is always good. And if you haven’t yet encountered this material—settle in for some tremendously helpful information and analysis.
From the Closing the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation’s full list of publications, here are a few that we’ve found most enlightening:
The poverty rate is closely correlated with post-secondary education.
While the median wealth of young families fell by half between 1984 and 2005, it rose by almost 40% for those in which the major income recipient was a university graduate aged 35 to 54.
[Morissette, René & Zhang, Xuelin. "Revisiting Wealth Inequality" in Perspectives on Labour and Income."]
It’s a sobering statistic: the poverty rate is twice as high for families headed by someone without a university degree as it is for those headed by a university graduate. Even more striking is that the income gap between university graduates and those without a degree is growing—this graph shows just how much over the past twenty-five years:
Data from "Revisiting Wealth Inequality"; charts created by CPSAP.
Education is one key component of overall well-being; health and prosperity increase as education levels rise.
Most of us know that education is correlated with higher incomes, increased social mobility, and expanded employment options. These are all important benefits—both to individuals (who experience greater control over their lives and increased stability) and to society at large (which is more productive and competitive when it has a well-educated workforce).
But there are many other benefits of education, as well, ones which are at least as important as the economic advantages. One of these is that education is what is known as a social determinant of health—it’s one key non-medical factor in people’s health and well-being. (Canada is one of the countries spearheading research into the social determinants of health.) 
So, for instance, Health Canada tells us that: “Researchers have known for a long time, by studying the relationships between variables, that social factors and health are correlated. It is not news, for instance, that people with high income and education levels tend to be healthier and live longer than people who fall lower on the socioeconomic scale” (emphasis added). Moreover, this effect is non-trivial. According to research presented to the Canadian parliament, “Research has estimated that 15% of the population’s health is attributable to biology and genetic factors, 10% to the physical environment, 25% to the reparative work of the health care system, while, fully 50% is attributable to the social and economic environment” (see chart).
How does education affect health?
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The groups facing the biggest challenges.
We all know that access to post-secondary education (PSE) isn’t a sure thing—there will always be some people who aren’t aware of their educational options, and some who aren’t able to pursue them. But the challenges are particularly acute in certain demographic groups, which have a strikingly low rate of participation in post-secondary education.
This chart, prepared for the YMCA and CPSAP, shows the disproportionate rates of participation in post-secondary education among two groups facing perhaps the biggest challenges in accessing education: those whose parents had low rates of participation in PSE, and Canada’s First Nations.
It is because of statistics like the ones shown above that CPSAP targets those groups specifically in its programming—it’s an attempt not just to increase overall rates of participation in PSE, but to remedy some fundamental social inequalities, which see immigrants and First Nations Canadians at a significant disadvantage with regards to socio-economic stability and improvement relative to the population at large.
How information deficits discourage high school students from pursuing post-secondary education.
One the last documents issued by the Canadian Millennium Scholarship Foundation was a report titled “An Examination of Barriers to pursuing PSE and Potential Solutions.” Put together by Ekos Research in 2009, the report discusses the concerns expressed by high school students who had decided not to pursue further studies. It’s a fascinating analysis, and is available in full here, but practicioners who are specifically concerned with access issues, and especially for those who are concerned with CPSAP’s kind of programming, here are some of the most pertinent findings…
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You Can Go covered by the Ontario College of Teachers.
Though this article appeared a little while ago now, this dandy little blog we’ve got is new, and so we thought we’d take this opportunity to let you know about it. Professionally Speaking, the magazine issued by the Ontario College of Teachers, had a nice little update on You Can Go and its successes. The full article is available online right here—just scroll down to the bottom of the page to find it!
Sometimes, face-to-face really is the best way to learn.
One of the great ways of learning about best practices in any field is via conferences, by talking with colleagues in person and asking others questions about their work in real time. The CPSAP inaugural conference, called “Prepared Minds, Prepared Places,” was held in Toronto in October 2009. It was a great success, and we were thrilled to see so many of you there. With more than three hundred participants attending and presenting, lots of information and expertise was shared in just a few short days. In fact, our biggest problem was that people found so much of interest that they couldn’t get to everything they wanted. (As one of the participants said: “it would be great to be able to attend three presentations at the same time.”)
Sad that you missed it? Well, the good news is that all the presentations are available online.
And while we’re on the subject, we’d also like to let you know about two upcoming international conferences on post-secondary education access and success:
- The European Access Network is devoted to increasing education access for underrepresented communities across Europe. The title of this year’s conference is “From Access to Success: Closing the Knowledge Divide.” The 19th EAN Annual Conference will run from June 14-16 and will be held at the Södertörn University in Stockholm, Sweden. Full details are available here.
- The National College Access Network, which does fantastic work on access issues in the United States, will be holding its 15th anniversary conference a few months later. “Changing the Face of Education” will run from October 11-13 in Washington DC. Information on that conference can be found here.
Both the European Access Network and National College Access Network have helped shape what CPSAP is today. The European and U.S. learnings they have shared so generously with us have inspired us to establish a firm footing for services in Canada. Both EAN and NCAN conferences routinely provide a wealth of resources and ample opportunities for networking with practitioners from all over the world.
It’s our one month-a-versary!
It has been almost a month since we have launched this blog and we are very happy to report that we’ve gotten great feedback from many people. Our goal is to post bi-monthly, and we very much welcome your contributions as well. (Got a CPSAP story to share? Get in touch with us.) This is a forum for all of us to explore ideas on post-secondary education access, and to share information about successes, best practices, and the challenges we’ve encountered along the way.
This blog is only part of our online presence. On the sidebar to your right you’ll find the link to our websites: www.accesspartenship.ca, www.youcango.ca, and www.onyva.ca.
We have also a Facebook profile. To check that out, just click on the Facebook icon over to the right.
Technology is moving and so are we. Please join us online, and please let us know what you think about all these tools. The more information we share, the better the information we give to our students.
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