Busting the myth of an enrolment bust
It's not going to happen, certainly not within the next decade, says an expert on university enrolment
by Léo Charbonneau
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Illustration: Christiane Beauregard
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The headlines this past February could scarcely have been more alarming: "University boom headed for a bust," read the National Post; "Declining student numbers risk country's future," intoned the Globe and Mail; "University classrooms emptying," stated the Daily News in Halifax.
Alarming, yes - but also alarmist, says Herb O'Heron, senior adviser, national affairs, at the Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. "There's a huge misperception," he says.
The newspapers were reacting to a recent report on university access by the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation. The report notes that the size of the young adult population in Canada will begin to decline within the next 10 years, meaning there will be a smaller pool of potential candidates for university. So if current levels of enrolment are to be maintained, a higher percentage of young adults will have to go to university than do now.
Just a few weeks earlier, University of Toronto professor and noted demographer David Foot seemed to give credence to the idea of an enrolment drop. Speaking to a conference of Ontario university faculty members about a possible faculty shortage - due to rising student enrolment and faculty retirements - Dr. Foot said the problem may eventually "solve itself." By next decade, "demand may well be going down as the baby boom echo [the children of the baby boom generation] leaves our system."
Mr. O'Heron begs to differ. The huge increase in university enrolment seen over the past 10 years is starting to slow, he says, but it is extremely unlikely that there will be fewer students in university in 2016 than there are today. A more likely scenario is for enrolment to be up significantly - "somewhere in the order of 120,000 more students," he says.
That estimate is contained in a new volume on university enrolment for the series Trends in Higher Education, published by AUCC and available soon online. Prior to the launch of the new volume, Mr. O'Heron spoke with University Affairs to address some of the issues around enrolment and to discuss what the association sees for the future.
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| Canada’s university participation rates place us in the middle of the pack of OECD countries, says Mr. O’Heron. Photo: Léo Charbonneau |
UA: Before looking ahead, let's take a moment to look back. How has university enrolment changed over the past decade?
Herb O'Heron: I think it would be more instructive to look at the last 15 years. In the first five of those years, we saw tremendous government cutbacks. As a result, with fewer faculty to teach students and fewer resources to support them, universities were in no position to increase their enrolments. Also during that time, there was very little or no growth in the young adult demographic (those 18 to 21 years of age), so national participation rates flattened out. Many people concluded from this that we'd reached some kind of limit in participation rates and they started to project enrolments mainly on the basis of population.
But, of course, really what was happening in that five-year period was that capacity was being constrained. Fewer and fewer capable students who wanted to go to university were able to go. So when the brakes came off, when governments began to reinvest, enrolment exploded. In the last decade, from 1996 until 2006, full-time student enrolment grew by 40 percent. That's 245,000 more students than we had a decade earlier.
The young adult cohort also grew during these last 10 years, by about 10 percent. But remember, enrolment grew by 40 percent. So, the participation rate was growing strongly. It was a huge sea change.
UA: What accounts for this growth?
Herb O'Heron: You have to ask yourself, why do students enrol? In large measure it's due to labour market signals. They pursue a university education because they feel it will enhance their career prospects. And they're right. Jobs that require a university degree are the fastest-growing segment of the labour market.
Putting it another way, there has been a tremendous match between supply and demand for university graduates. This huge growth in the number of graduates matches the demand in the labour market. And, as I mentioned, the increased enrolment has been accommodated by growth in investments.
UA: What about the dire predictions that have been appearing in the media lately of an impending enrolment bust? What are these based on?
Herb O'Heron: My impression is that what's in the newspapers is not a true reflection of what's in the reports. The reports of demographic declines have been twisted into headlines about enrolment decline, as if the population decline will translate on a one-to-one ratio into enrolment decline. What the studies really are saying is that without further growth in participation rates, the prospects for further enrolment growth are diminished.
But I think participation rates will continue to grow, and not just in the traditional young adult cohort. There is room for growth in other areas of the population - for example, older adult learners and groups that traditionally have been under-represented, such as those from less-advantaged economic backgrounds. I also think there'll be significant growth in demand for professional and graduate programs over the coming decade.
UA: According to the OECD, Canada already leads the world in terms of postsecondary education attainment. Are we reaching a saturation point?
Herb O'Heron: I'm personally concerned with the indicator, the measuring instrument, used by the OECD for international postsecondary education attainment. Indeed, because of growing concerns with this indicator, the OECD will be putting together a working group on this topic this spring.
For instance, according to OECD statistics, Canada has four times more trade/vocational graduates per capita than the average for OECD countries, and three times more college graduates per capita. That magnitude of difference is questionable to me. There are clearly reporting problems. We know the U.S. is not reporting in the same way as Canada, and other countries are also raising questions.
My bigger concern is that the constant reporting of this fact - and it becomes a fact - about our high attainment levels is that it leaves us in a kind of policy paralysis mode. Why do we need to invest more in education if we are already the world leader?
In fact, if we look specifically at university enrolment, we're losing ground. Canada currently sits 18th of 29 countries reporting to the OECD in terms of university participation rates. In the early 1980s, we were ranked second in the world, just after the U.S. But since then, other countries have been increasing their university enrolments at a much faster rate than Canada, so our competitive advantage has actually been eroding.
UA: I occasionally hear the criticism from people along the lines of: "Why does everyone have to go to university?" How do you respond to that?
Herb O'Heron: Yes, from time to time over my 20 years at AUCC, that question arises. And it's always formulated exactly the same way, like you said: "Why does everybody need to get a university degree? Don't we have enough? Don't people need to do different things?"
But there's a huge misperception. If you were to ask the general public what they think is the percentage of young adults who go to university, most would say well over half. They're pretty shocked when I tell them that, in fact, only about 23 to 24 percent of youth aged 18 to 21 are enrolled in university full-time. For comparison, Korea is the leading nation with 37 percent of students enrolled and six other countries have enrolment levels surpassing 30 percent.
There's also a perception that the percentage of people with university degrees has climbed dramatically - doubled or tripled - over the past few decades, but that too isn't the case. If you look at Canadians aged 25 to 29, about 28 percent have a degree. For those aged 55 to 59, the Baby Boomers, it's 21 percent. So it's perception versus reality. Certainly not everyone is going to university.
UA: What are the current enrolment numbers?
Herb O'Heron: In 2006, there were about 815,000 full-time students at Canadian universities - about 700,000 undergraduates and 115,000 graduate students. There were also about a quarter million students enrolled part-time.
UA: And what do you see in terms of enrolment growth over the next 10 years?
Herb O'Heron: Nationally, even if we didn't have any participation growth at all, we'd still see 16,000 more students in 2016 than we currently have. If we see very, very limited growth in participation rates, a low-growth scenario, we're looking at about 70,000 more students in 2016. More optimistically, and I would suggest more realistically, the numbers are likely to be significantly higher than that - somewhere in the order of 120,000 more students.
UA: Are there some regions, such as Atlantic Canada, that could see actual declines in enrolment?
Herb O'Heron: There is no question that enrolment pressures will vary wildly across the country. Some universities, including those in Atlantic Canada, will confront major challenges in maintaining their current enrolment levels. They will need to grow their participation rates to offset declines in their population.
And, in 2006 several institutions did in fact see enrolment declines. That should not be unexpected given the changes in demography and given the very rapid increases in intake three and four years ago. One of the factors we didn't mention earlier about the recent enrolment growth was the double cohort in Ontario. Some institutions that attracted students from Ontario's double cohort had large increases in 2002 and 2003, and they're now facing the graduation of those students. So unless they keep their intake up, they're going to start losing students.
UA: Any final thoughts?
Herb O'Heron: One of my biggest concerns is that we look too far ahead and focus too much about the potential declines that could come as a result of demographics, and this could lead people to think that we don't need to do more. Even if enrolment doesn't increase, this provides a tremendous opportunity to improve the quality of what's going on at our institutions. The biggest mistake we could make is to plan to cut resources to all institutions over the coming decade on the basis of just a demographic decline.
