HUMA Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON HUMAN RESOURCES DEVELOPMENT AND THE STATUS OF PERSONS WITH DISABILITIES

COMITÉ PERMANENT DU DÉVELOPPEMENT DES RESSOURCES HUMAINES ET DE LA CONDITION DES PERSONNES HANDICAPÉES

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, May 17, 2001

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[English]

The Chair (Mr. Peter Adams (Peterborough, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order.

The order of the day, as you can see, is pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), access to post-secondary education, financing and mobility. This is part of the committee's interest in higher education and training. Also, it's part of our follow-up to the consideration of the Canada student loan program, which has to do with access to education.

Before I introduce our witnesses I want to apologize to them for us being late. As I think I explained to most of you, the committee has just come from a meeting on a draft report, which began at 9 o'clock. It was quite an intense meeting. So that's why we are a little bit late arriving here.

We're very grateful to you for coming to the first of our meetings. For the record, our witnesses today are Denise Doherty Delorme, a research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives; Dr. Paul Cappon, Director General, Council of Ministers of Education (Canada); Thomas Townsend, Director General, Learning and Literacy Secretariat, Department of Human Resources Development; Dr. Tom Brzustowski, President, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, NSERC; Scott Murray, Director General, Institutions and Social Statistics, Statistics Canada; and Dr. Ross Finnie, Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University.

We welcome you all here. It's very good of you to come. I know that in some cases it was on very short notice, and I know that some of you have come some distance.

If it's okay with you, we'll proceed. I have no sense of the order here.

By the way, have I missed anybody? I have. This is horrific. We have Paul Davenport, President and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Western Ontario. Paul, I'm sorry about that. I was reading without looking, and I didn't turn over the page. You're most welcome.

Is it suitable that we begin at the right and move across quite quickly? I'm looking at people here. I might at some point jump to Paul Cappon for a particular reason.

Denise Doherty Delorme, would you care to begin?

Ms. Denise Doherty Delorme (Research Associate, Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives): I'm sorry, do you mean to make a brief remark or to give my presentation now?

The Chair: Given the circumstances and the numbers we have, Denise, perhaps you could make a brief statement. Can you try to incorporate the rest of your remarks into the discussion? I think everyone was told up to five minutes.

Ms. Denise Doherty Delorme: Yes.

The Chair: That's what I mean.

[Translation]

Ms. Denise Doherty Delorme: Good morning. My name is Denise Doherty Delorme and I am with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

[English]

I'm Denise Doherty Delorme, and I'm with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives.

Decisions regarding the financing of post-secondary education are significant in that they determine who will and who will not attend and who will benefit from a higher education. Education is very expensive and to have a high-quality system of education is even more expensive. But long ago

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[Translation]

all Canadians from all provinces decided that they wanted to have enough money to have a high quality education system.

[English]

What students and their families are less prepared and less able to do is to go into debt or to live in poverty in order to get that education.

I'll start with a complete definition of accessibility, and then I would like to discuss some of the knowledge gaps that exist and the information needed to make sound decisions on these policy matters. Moreover, this information will help us assess the real funding needs and the impact on accessibility and Canadians.

Accessibility must not be defined as only a single measurement of the point of entry into a college or university. It must be viewed as a multiple-point measurement. There are five points I would suggest. The first point is before application—

[Translation]

even before thinking about going to school.

[English]

How are young people preparing for or being dissuaded from preparing for post-secondary education, whether it be a college or a university? The second point is the point of entry. What proportion of the population is attending either a college or a university? The third point is retention and completion. What proportion of students are able to finish their course of study? The fourth point is utilization. What rate of students are able to use their degree to the fullest extent of their capabilities? The final point is the rate of return. Are the benefits of post-secondary education sufficient? Are they enough to cover the financial and opportunity costs associated with attending?

It is encouraging that both Statistics Canada and the Applied Research Branch of HRDC are devoting more resources to these issues. It's one thing I've spoken of in the past.

Yet even with this new body of work there still exists a large knowledge gap. Let us examine a few of these gaps. We do not know the following: who is and who is not applying for post-secondary education; how the demographics of those applying have changed over the last few years or even decades;

[Translation]

how many people complete their educational program and, if they do not, why they drop out.

[English]

We also don't know the effects of a fear of high debt loads on young people as early as grade six or seven when they are deciding which academic stream to follow. Are they going to finish at grade twelve or continue on to college or university? How are students faring during their course of studies? Are they living in poverty? How are graduate students, especially those in the arts and humanities, funding their education?

There are some serious consequences at the macro level that can no longer be ignored. For example, the policy decision to prohibit student loan debt holders from declaring bankruptcy for ten years after leaving school is so short-sighted that it is almost to the point of being despicable. The federal government has simply downloaded the deficit onto the shoulders of young people. As a country we have ignored our responsibility to those who have had to bear the brunt of a decade of underfunding. High education costs and poor career opportunities have made it impossible for students to meet the financial burden of repaying a student loan, especially when it's at prime plus 2.5% or 5%.

The data is clear—and I'm sure that some of my colleagues will be talking about this later on—that the rate of return for the majority of students is a positive one, but this is not so for all who enter a college or university. Some men and women in all disciplines will experience a negative rate of return on their educational investment. These people will be worse off financially than if they had never attended a college or university in the first place.

Some of the research shows a greater rate of return for women than for men. It's not because they have better earnings after graduation but because their opportunity costs were lower in the first place. They did not lose as much money by going to school compared with getting a job. So that would say to us that if we can lower the cost of post-secondary education, we can better the rate of return for people.

What am I asking you to do? If the federal surplus was built on the backs of our struggling students, it is time to pay them back. Simple equity and justice demand nothing less. Today the federal government will announce across the hall that the surplus will be $3 billion more than expected, somewhere around $15 billion. Let me repeat: in effect, the federal government can make this announcement because it diverted money from post-secondary education and students to pay down the national debt. Few other groups in Canada have been as hard-hit. Moreover, the government has deliberately short-changed the future of these students and the country as a whole. The pain of debt reduction was not felt equally across the country. It is time for the government to redress this inequity and restore the innovative capacity of this country—something we've talked about a lot in a few budget speeches.

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I would respectfully ask that the surplus be returned to its intended destination. The money should be used immediately to help eliminate tuition fees in this country, to provide financial assistance to those most in need, and to help those who are, at this time, so burdened by their student loan debts they're living in poverty and forcing their families to live in poverty as well.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Denise.

Before I go to you, Paul, if I might, I should have noted at the beginning that the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation could not be here. They have submitted written briefs, which the members have.

I'll rejig what I said before. I'm going to go to Paul Davenport and Tom Brzustowski. I'm going to then jump to Paul Cappon. I'll come back, gentlemen, and end with Thomas Townsend, representing HRDC, which is this committee's department.

Paul Davenport.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Davenport (President and Vice-Chancellor, University of Western Ontario): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am very pleased to be appearing before you, committee members, to talk about the funding of university education in Canada.

First of all, I will talk about the challenge of accessibility in Canada and the two ways to meet this challenge, the Canada loans and bursaries system and university funding in general.

[English]

I'm Paul Davenport, the President of the University of Western Ontario.

First, with regard to the accessibility challenge itself, we face a decade of growth in student numbers in our country unequalled since the 1960s. The 1960s growth was produced by the baby boom. We're now getting the echo of the baby boom. We're going to see an extraordinary increase in our country and south of the border in the number of students seeking access to university.

I know sometimes the accessibility challenge is dismissed. One commentator or another will say they already have too many university students and want to do something else with public funds.

Let me quote one such commentator, Diane Francis, in The Financial Post of 1998:

The public is beginning to realize a technical education at a college or vocational school is considerably more valuable than most university degrees.

That is false. Every study for the last 30 years in every advanced country has shown it's false. I don't think in this committee I need to tell you university graduates have a lower unemployment rate and higher average earnings. The earnings differential increases with age, as compared to any other educational group, including college graduates in technical programs. I can do the comparison with arts and science graduates, or even humanities graduates, against the technical programs and get the same result.

What's the bottom line? The bottom line is in Ontario the default rate for university graduates is about half the college rate, and about a third or a quarter of the default rate for the private vocational schools Ms. Francis mentioned. The default rate in Ontario for universities is actually falling. It fell last year below 8%. I want to put this in context. Most university grads earn very good incomes and the overwhelming majority pay back their loans.

What's the accessibility problem? It's in two areas. I want to illustrate it with Western data. Western students look like average Ontario students in terms of debt load, family income, and so on. This is good data. We find at Western about 30% of our students graduate from undergraduate studies with no debt whatever, about 55% have debt below $35,000, which is very manageable with the incomes they're going to have, and 15% have debt over $35,000. This is all educational debt from any source. It's based on student responses. The students are giving the answers themselves.

On the loan system, what do we need to do? We need to focus on the students who have the higher debt loads. They're a small minority. The first and most important thing to do is expand the current program of interest relief to a real income-contingent loan program, so that we track students after graduation, and that small minority who do run into trouble, if they are seeking employment or are employed at low salaries, are not forced into bankruptcy, even ten years out, but indeed are given the help they need. That should include debt reduction. We have good programs now of interest relief in both the provincial system in Ontario and the Canada student loan system. Let's combine those together and get a real income-contingent system.

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There are two other suggestions I'd like to make. First, let's reduce the paper burden. In Ontario students are continually filling out one set of forms for the Canada student loan program, another set of forms for the Ontario system. They genuinely get confused. The definitions of parental income, what it takes to get interest relief, or what you're supposed to contribute from your summer earnings, are different between the two. There's no good reason for that. While these may seem like minor things, this creates a lot of anxiety for students and a lot of unneeded waiting in line and paper duplication—waste of cost. Let's fix that.

Finally, I want to make a special plea, Mr. Chairman, for graduate students. As part of this enormous increase in accessibility that we're trying to support, we're going to see a binge of retirements at our university, we're going to lose an awful lot of our faculty—something like a third over the next decade. We are not funding graduate students as we should. My proposal to you would be to double the budgets of the NSERC and the SSHRC granting councils and require that the student aid portion of those budgets be doubled also. I know that both councils would be more than willing to do that. That kind of dramatic increase is what you need if our graduate students are going to be well funded and if we're going to recruit the right kinds of students into our graduate programs to meet this accessibility challenge.

My third point—and I'll be very quick, Mr. Chairman—is that funding students better, giving them better financial aid, can only be part of the solution. We also need to get more operating funds into our universities. In Ontario, for example, the student-faculty ratio has gone up by 25% in the last decade. The student-faculty ratio in Canadian public universities would be 20% above that in American public universities. I've distributed graphs to the committee in both official languages that lay all this out. In Ontario we'd be 35% above the public universities in the United States in student-faculty ratios. We have to give our students more support through classroom teachers and staff in the universities. That requires more operating funds.

You'll say it's largely a provincial responsibility, and indeed it is. But my last point would simply be that there is an opportunity now for the federal government to make an enormous contribution to university operating budgets. It's the funding of what we call the indirect cost of research. It's a little outside the scope of this committee maybe, but in respect of education and training for the next generation, that funding of the indirect cost of research would give an enormous shot in the arm to our universities.

[Translation]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman, for this invitation.

The Chair: Thank you very much.

[English]

Tom Brzustowski of NSERC.

[Translation]

Mr. Thomas A. Brzustowski (President, Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I am very pleased to be attending this meeting. I have some information which, I am convinced, will be of great interest to the members of the committee.

[English]

Mr. Chairman, I'd like to just provide some information. This builds very nicely on what President Davenport has just said about the highest level of HQP, people with advanced degrees in the natural sciences and engineering. Let me give you a summary statement first from our performance report.

[Translation]

More than 60% of the funds allocated to NSERC for research and development was used to pay technicians, students from the three university levels and for postdoctoral fellows. Students at the masters and doctoral levels received 26% of the funding, technicians, 21%, undergraduates, 5% and postdoctoral fellows, 9%.

[English]

Mr. Chairman, let me give you some numbers, because I think this is an important part of the story, given the government's commitment to move Canada from 15th place to 5th in research and development. The people we're talking about here are the people the country has to count on to do this.

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We're talking here about support for students of two kinds. At the undergraduate level, we provide support to senior undergraduates to give them one term of research in a laboratory. This is a very effective means of attracting people to scientific and engineering careers. In 1999-2000, we supported 5,600 of these people, and they got $4,000 each. This is for one term.

At the post-graduate level, we supported 7,800 master's and doctoral students, which is less than 40% of the total enrolment, and we pay—

The Chair: Is that total enrolment in the disciplines served by NSERC?

Dr. Thomas Brzustowski: In the disciplines of natural sciences and engineering.

The Chair: Okay, thank you.

Dr. Thomas Brzustowski: If you wish, I'll give the—

The Chair: No, we're—

Dr. Thomas Brzustowski: You might find those interesting because—

The Chair: Sure.

Dr. Thomas Brzustowski: —in Canada those enrolments are growing, whereas they're declining in some other countries.

Anyway, we provide support for students in two ways. One is that they win individual scholarships by competition. These are $17,300 a year for master's students and $19,100 for doctoral students, up to a total of four years. The other half are paid out of research grants that professors receive, and they're limited to about $16,500.

We also support post-doctoral fellows. We pay them $35,000 a year, and we've supported 1,300 of those. So the support is to slightly fewer than 40,000 of the students enrolled in natural sciences and engineering, and in addition, disciplines like physical geography, animal health, kinesiology, and certain branches of psychology.

Taken in isolation, the numbers we have don't tell us a great deal. But when we talk to student groups, their first priority always has been, if you get more money, don't increase our stipends; give money to more students. This comes from the student groups. When you talk to their supervisors, you hear, give more money to the students who are there now, because many of them are leaving without finishing their degrees because of financial pressures—two different points of view, easily reconciled.

On a regular basis we survey the people who have been supported at the undergraduate level, the people who have been supported with post-graduate support, and the post-doctoral fellows. The next issue of this survey will be available in a few weeks, and we'd be very happy to supply that to committee members.

But what we have is information that, for example, of the undergraduates, something like 83% of them believe their exposure to one term of research in a lab has either increased or maintained a high interest in being involved in research and development. We find that the vast majority of students who received NSERC support completed their degree, and most of them say that support was essential to them completing the degree.

We find that of those post-graduate students who hold their doctoral scholarships outside of Canada, half intend to return home. This is the kind of information that I'm sure the committee will find very useful.

The last thing I want to tell you is that whereas in a number of other countries in the G-8—I'm not sure what the numbers are in Russia, so I should say G-7—there has been a decline in enrolment in the science and engineering fields. That has not been the case in Canada. Between 1989-90 and the end of that decade, the total enrolment in first degrees in natural science and engineering bachelor's degree studies has gone from 91,000 to 116,000; and at the master's level, over the same decade, from 10,000 to 12,300; and at the PhD level, in the same decade, from $7,300 to $8,400.

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International comparisons show that our trends are good in the sense of growth, but our absolute numbers of these people and the numbers per capita of general population are too small in comparison with other countries.

The one shining exception in this country is the city of Montreal, where, on the basis of the absolute number of post-secondary students, Montreal comes fifth on the continent, and in the number of post-secondary students per capita of the general population, it is first, ahead of New York, Boston, San Francisco, and so on. That is the one exception in the country.

We believe we need more of these people, we need to attract more of them to this kind of work, and we need to retain more of them in it if we're going to meet that very important goal that the Prime Minister has set.

Thank you very much.

The Chair: Tom, thank you very much. The figures were very useful, and we would be most grateful if you could send us a copy.

Dr. Thomas Brzustowski: We will present a copy of the survey. We will summarize the figures that I read from several sources and provide them to the committee.

The Chair: Okay.

I'll go to Paul Cappon of the Council of Ministers of Education (Canada).

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Cappon (Director General, Council of Ministers of Education (Canada)): Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would also like to thank you for inviting me to this meeting of the Standing Committee and I commend you and your members for the attention you are devoting to the key themes of accessibility and mobility at the post-secondary level.

It is the case that these two themes are of crucial importance for the Council of Ministers of Education Canada, as well. Mr. Chairman, what I would like to do in the next few minutes allotted to me is to deal with the priority that education ministers attach to accessibility and mobility, and to report on some of the major activities under way at CMEC on these issues.

As an aside, it is fair to say that CMEC, as an organization, has evolved considerably over the past four or five years. Known historically as an organization that focussed primarily on the K-12 sector, I can now say without any hesitation that post-secondary education issues are at the top of our list of priorities.

This, of course, is not a coincidence. Governments, industry and society in general, are all aware of the vitally important role that the post-secondary sector must play if we are to maintain and improve our civil society and to compete advantageously with other advanced nations—all of whose economies are increasingly dependent on knowledge and innovation for growth.

And we all know the challenges that our institutions face—as mentioned by Mr. Davenport—in meeting current demands while seeking solutions to anticipated demands.

[English]

The Council of Ministers of Education published in 1999 its Report on Public Expectations of Postsecondary Education in Canada. I think it is very relevant to the discussion we're having today.

This report is essentially a statement of expectations that could reasonably be held of the sector, the participants in the sector, and of government with respect to post-secondary education. These expectations were endorsed by the premiers at the annual premiers conference in that year.

In the report, ministers articulated six broad expectation statements. These concerned: quality; accessibility; mobility and portability; relevance and responsiveness; research and scholarship; and accountability.

For our purposes today, I want to share with you some of the expectation statements with respect to accessibility and mobility.

With regard to accessibility, I want to read this statement, because I think it's quite comprehensive. Again, it's an ideal towards which we need to strive:

Postsecondary education is accessible throughout life. Quality learning opportunities are provided to those accepted into PSE programs. There are opportunities for those individuals who do not meet admission requirements and require further preparation. International students are received by institutions in recognition of the fact that the integration of international students serves both individual learners and the broader community.

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With regard to mobility and portability, the ministers stated as an expectation that:

Students obtain credit for prior learning as they transfer between programs, institutions and the labour market. Governments ensure that there are no barriers to interprovincial mobility that unreasonably inhibit access.

Again, I've said that these are ideal statements towards which we need to strive, not the current conditions.

Our work on the accessibility project is far from complete, but we have made great strides, I think, over the last few years, the last year in particular. I want to provide you with some highlights.

First, we commissioned a report on financial barriers to post-secondary education, which we received in March of this year. While this report has not yet been released, I'd like to provide you with a few key trends, as identified by its author, some of which will be echoed shortly, I think, and have already been mentioned.

(1) Over the past number of years, a combination of increasing enrolments and fiscal restraint has led to a decrease in government support of full-time students.

(2) Tuition levels have increased as a consequence, but family incomes, in real terms, have not.

(3) Student support programs have shifted from grants to loans in many jurisdictions, and this movement, combined with increasing assistance limits, has resulted in an upward movement of student debt levels.

(4) The use of private loans to finance post-secondary study is becoming more apparent.

(5) It is clear that students are paying more, borrowing more, and receiving less grant assistance than they did in the past.

None of those, I think, will be surprises to you as conclusions from that report.

During the coming year we will address the issue of access by under-represented groups, such as students from low-income families, students from rural and remote areas, aboriginal students, and students with disabilities. The purpose of this work will be to review initiatives in Canada and abroad, to address access by these groups, and to identify best practices for jurisdictions to consider.

The third element of our work in accessibility has to do with online learning. In partnership with Industry Canada, we've established the Advisory Committee for Online Learning, whose report, e-learning e-volution in colleges and universities, the: A Pan-Canadian Challenge, has been released and is in book format and in PDF on the CMEC website. I think this report is important. It contains many useful recommendations that, if we can implement them, will serve to enhance the quality of educational offerings, but also to improve access, which in a country like Canada, given our geographical dimensions, as well as the socio-economic dimensions, is an important question.

Finally, echoing some of the remarks that have just been made, the question of institutional capacity and resourcing is uppermost on the minds of ministers and deputy ministers at CMEC, and in fact was the major focus of discussion at our recent meetings in Toronto. A report we received recently suggests that substantial investments will be required just to sustain the post-secondary system at current levels in order to maintain current participation rates, renew the professorial staff, and address the deferred maintenance and infrastructure costs.

I do believe—and again I'm in accord with the previous speakers with respect to the issue of capacity and resource of the system—that it is a very serious question for this country, which I hope will be in part addressed through the work of this committee.

[Translation]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Paul.

[English]

Ross Finnie, if you would.

[Translation]

Mr. Ross Finnie (Research Fellow and Adjunct Professor, School of Policy Studies, Queen's University): I will be making my comments in English, but I would be pleased to answer your questions in French.

[English]

The reason I'm here is that for the last ten years or so I've been doing research on post-secondary graduates, various aspects of their experiences, including a focus on student borrowing and implications for the financing of post-secondary education in this country. I'm fascinated by this research, and I think it's wonderfully important. There are few issues that are so important to both social justice and economic performance in this country as this great opportunity before you today.

First of all, a remark or two—and I'll let Scott go further on this—on what we know and what we don't know about access. We don't know more than we know, and we don't know very much about access, unfortunately. There are technical reasons for that. Basically, it requires special sorts of surveys with special sorts of questions, and by and large we haven't put those into place.

Over the next few years, because of initiatives by Statistics Canada, in collaboration with HRDC, our understanding of these dynamics will become much, much better. That is, we'll have an understanding of how access to the post-secondary education system is related to family background and the role of the student financial system in that. In the meantime, we'll have to do what we need to do.

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Now, what we do know is I've been able to mine a series of databases—I won't get more technical than this—to analyse the levels of borrowing and the burdens of debt over the last couple of decades of post-secondary graduates. The numbers are actually quite surprising. Most of what we see in the press is highly exaggerated. Borrowing levels and problems with borrowing have been, by and large, highly exaggerated.

Just to run down some of the major results—and this I'm taking from a forthcoming paper I have that will be published as a C.D. Howe Institute commentary as well as will be appearing in various academic reviews—of the most recent set of graduates, those who finished in 1995, between one-quarter and one half finished with any level of student loans at all, so less than half of all graduates. The numbers correspond with those that Paul mentioned earlier. Of those who borrow, the average levels of borrowing have ranged from $9,000 to $14,000. Those are the average levels of those with debts.

There are some horror tales—the extremes. I cover those in my papers, but those are small. The numbers with extreme debt levels are quite small. When you average over all graduates, including the non-borrowers, average borrowing across all graduates is between $3,000 and $6,000. This is accumulated debt at graduation. I'm looking at bachelor degrees, masters degrees, PhD degrees, as well as college graduates.

We don't have good data on default, but the incidence of self-reported problems and difficulties with student loans is the question. They ask these people whether they have had difficulties with their loans. If you average over all graduates, the numbers range from 10% to 15%.

So the bottom line here is that borrowing levels have not been that great. They've increased. Debt burdens have increased, but they're still not that heavy. People have been able to pay off their loans, by and large, as Paul was saying. Forty to fifty percent of the loans are paid back by two years following graduation. There is a small number of people who have experienced debt problems.

Now, the situation has changed in the last years. There's no question about that. But it probably hasn't changed that much. I can get into an explication, but I won't. So debt levels are higher than those, but by and large debt level is not that high. Problems are not that common. That's what's been going on with student debt.

So what should we do? Let's have a system that again is socially just and we'll gain access to the system serving the economic efficiency goals as well. What I'm proposing is the loan system again echoing some of these others. Most students' debt levels are not that high. They can sustain higher levels, and they ought to for reasons of equity as much as social efficiency. That is to say most people in the system come from higher-income families, or will go on to have higher incomes, as the point Paul was making. At the same time, a loan system can deliver much more financial assistance for a given amount of government investment, because basically the money gets recycled. Instead of giving it to people and then the money's gone, you lend it and they pay it back. So a given amount of government spending can go much further.

So for both efficiency reasons and I would say social equity reasons, we should be going more toward lending than grants. What should the full system look like? Well, on top of that, and again echoing some of these other remarks, there should be a borrowing system, which is changed in the following ways. First, loan eligibility should be expanded—more loans for more people. Why? They need the money to get into the system, thus increasing accessibility into the system. Secondly...eligibility and borrowing limits. The next most important point, though, is—again picking up on this point—there is that small minority that is running into trouble, and those people need more help.

You have a loan system that delivers the money to those people who need it. Then at the same time it says to students, if you run into problems, we're going to help you out. There is a good start there. But you have a system that goes significantly further to really deliver the help that's needed to those people who run into it. Then you have a system—again it's beautiful—where you loan the money to those people who need it. Those people who can pay it back, pay it back. Those people who run into trouble you help out. All borrowers benefit from that system, because they understand that it's okay—if I run into trouble, I'm going to be looked after.

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So the sorts of debt aversion problems that crop up and are alleged to be a problem for access, and I believe are, are alleviated by a more generous loan system, with significantly greater help in the post-schooling period for those who need it.

What does that give you? In terms of a full system, at the top you have generous assistance still going to all students, because the government subsidizes post-secondary education to a great degree, as it should. Regardless of socio-economic background, everyone benefits from the government spending.

Second, you have a loan system that provides funds, which would not exist in the absence of the government loan system, and provides more funds to make sure that the money is there for those who need it.

Third, those who can afford to pay back those loans do so. I'm going in a cascading order here in terms of government assistance—how it works across the socio-economic spectrum. Those who can pay back the loans, because they go on to decent jobs with reasonable earnings levels and they don't have problems with unemployment, pay their loans back more or less in full. Next, those who run into problems get helped out. Then at the bottom—and this will probably always be a need for a grant system that gets those at the very bottom of the socio-economic system—are those from the lowest-income families, for whom debt aversion is, and always will be, a problem, even though there's a nice loan system out there. So a smaller contained grant system will always be part of that.

That's what I think the government should be doing—put more money where it's needed to guarantee access in a fair and just manner.

Finally, I've used that to address these other problems that there is not enough money in the post-secondary system. The system has been bleeding for the last decade and a half. How are we going to get money into the system?

I propose a social contract of the nature where each level of government puts in $1,000 and the students put in $1,000: $3,000—the feds, the provinces, and the students. Everyone should be happy, because they get a much greater quality of education and they're only paying a third of the cost. It's like a challenge on each party.

The students are given the means to do this by an expanded loan system along the lines of what I've talked about. But the means to do it are to be looked after so that the excessive debt load won't be a problem. The provinces and the federal government should both be happy, because each of them is only putting in $1,000, and the other $2,000 is coming from the other parties.

It's the back-of-the-envelope set of calculations. It's an outside-the-box idea motivated by my thinking about this access to the system and the means to do it. I leave that perhaps as a basis for further discussions.

I have other work on interprovincial mobility, but that's available. I won't speak any further.

The Chair: We may well come back to those in the questions.

Scott Murray, Stats Canada.

[Translation]

Mr. Scott Murray (Director General, Institutions and Social Statistics, Statistics Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[English]

I'm going to take you in a little bit of a different direction, because I'm going to try to make what amount to some schizophrenic remarks.

The first thing you'd expect is to get a plea for better data from the system in order to understand these issues, because they are central to achieving social equity in economic outcomes and to our economic prosperity in the future. So it's worth investing some money in a Cartesian way to understand the processes.

You've heard from Ross and others that we are on the verge of having much better data, but it's not there yet. Many of the initiatives are contingently funded, so they could evaporate at any point.

What I am going to use is data comparing the disabled and the non-disabled population as an illustration of thinking about access and persistence in the system as a life cycle process and to illustrate that there are serious problems of equity of access, about which we understand little.

I'm going to start with an overall graph that looks at participation rates for Canadians 18 to 21 by socio-economic status. It compares SES and participation from 1986 to 1994. As an aside, that's the best and most current data that we have. It shows that participation increased across all three socio-economic status groups—lowest, middle, and highest SES groups—but the smallest gains were realized in people from the lowest SES. That means there is inequity in the system—inequity that can be attributed to differences in the taste for post-secondary education, in the underlying abilities to pursue it, and in the barriers to participating in it—including financial barriers.

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The second chart—cleverly labelled chart number one—shows graduation rates at the secondary level for disabled and non-disabled individuals. Disability is defined here in terms of activity limitations. It shows a big difference between the graduation rates of the two populations. This means that a significant proportion of individuals are excluded from participation in the post-secondary system, because they would not meet the prerequisites.

The next chart takes us one step further. For people who have a secondary graduation, the participation rates of disabled and non-disabled are almost identical. So there do not seem to be any significant barriers to at least beginning a post-secondary carrier.

Chart three, however, shows significant differences between disabled and non-disabled people in terms of graduation rates for those who begin a post-secondary education. The difference is six or seven percent, which is significant. This suggests that there are large and imposing barriers to their completing their education.

The final chart looks at the same issue from a slightly different perspective: the rate at which individuals acquire some post-secondary education. In this case, the disabled have higher participation rates than the non-disabled population—which suggests that lack of personal motivation is not a consideration. These people are willing to participate, but there are barriers that keep them from completing their education.

This illustration deals with one very vulnerable population. We can repeat the analysis by socioeconomic status and by immigrant status, and see roughly the same patterns.

I'll close with a Statistics Canada sort of plea that we need better data. We're on the verge of obtaining it, and we want to make sure that those data systems are maintained and improved. Once we have that data, we'll be better able to understand the serious issues of equity in the system.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Scott.

Thomas Townsend of HRDC.

Mr. Thomas Townsend (Director General, Learning and Literacy Secretariat, Human Resources Development Canada): Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the standing committee, for the opportunity to participate in this morning's discussion on accessibility and mobility.

Minister Stewart, who appeared before this committee last week, reminded us that over the next decade, only one in seventeen jobs will require less than a high school education. Canada's ability to compete internationally will depend on a large percentage of our population completing post-secondary studies.

But just as importantly, participation in post-secondary education is the largest single engine driving social mobility in our country. It is absolutely fundamental to the principles of a diverse and pluralist society.

We know that approximately 54% of the Canadian population has completed some level of post-secondary education—whether it be university, college, or trade or vocational schooling.

[Translation]

Nevertheless, certain indicators lead us to believe that the participation rate is increasing unequally, as Scott Murray mentioned earlier, particularly for socioeconomic groups and other significant groups. The participation rate appears to be lower for people from the rural regions, for the disabled and for Aboriginal peoples.

[English]

There are barriers to accessibility, and I'll address primarily the financial ones. But I would like to spend just a moment mentioning a number of the other, non-financial, barriers. I've identified five. First and foremost, and perhaps least understood by us, is the value placed on learning by the individual learner, and within the family unit. Second is the attainment of the necessary foundation of learning skills that will ensure success in post-secondary studies. Third is the array of structural barriers that may obscure and impede learner pathways to successful completion. Fourth are the financial barriers. And the fifth set of barriers are non-financial ones, such as time, family commitments, and workplace pressures.

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The order I've raised these barriers in is very important: in many circumstances, financial barriers are not the most significant ones.

Let me talk about values for a moment. The strongest predictor of attaining post-secondary schooling is the education level attained by the parents: mother first, and father second. Children raised in a stimulating learning environment are resilient to setbacks in their learning cycle. These individuals have a tendency to re-enter studies at a later time if they leave before completing their education.

[Translation]

One the main challenges to meet is to increase the post-secondary education participation rate and to reduce the by far too high number of young people who leave our secondary system without knowing how to read, write or count properly and who do not have the required cognitive abilities to be accepted into a post-secondary program and to complete it successfully.

Too many adults have witnessed their at one time good skills atrophy owing to a lack of use.

[English]

In terms of structural barriers, Canada has a fragmented post-secondary system that lacks a well-developed approach to the recognition of learning. Improvements need to be made to acknowledge the skills that individuals acquire outside Canada as they emigrate across all Canadian institutions and in the workplace.

[Translation]

As the committee has already noted, the spiralling costs associated with post-secondary education has become, over the past few years, a growing concern for all governments responsible for the cost of post-secondary education. Students pay approximately 30 to 35% of the direct costs of university education, for example.

[English]

With regard to financial barriers, for young people with low incomes, or from lower-income families, there is uncontested financial assistance from programs such as the Canada student loans program. However, increases in educational costs over the last decade, without any corresponding increases in family disposable income, have meant that middle-income families are having greater and greater difficulty saving for and paying for their children's post-secondary education. There are tax incentives for this group, but historically, there has not been direct financial assistance to them.

The Government of Canada has done much to assist learners. Our high participation rates are a function of a broadly accessible system, and are in part due to programs like the Canada student loans programs—the loans and grants that are available in most provinces. We know that about 44% of all students attending university or college receive a loan or a grant.

The government has also instituted a number of new measures over the last few years, which provide over $400 million a year in non-repayable assistance.

Having said this, there are areas we need to continue to work on. Some of these are the normal adjustments needed for any program as large as the Canada student loans program. Paul Davenport mentioned the confusion and the burden of paper that students are faced with in many provinces.

We have initiated a process of harmonizing and integrating the Canada student loans with those of the provinces. We're very close to having an arrangement in Saskatchewan that would essentially see a single window, a single application, a single adjudication process, and single measures for all students. And we're currently engaged in very intense discussions with Ontario for developing a pattern exactly like the Saskatchewan one.

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Another consideration frequently cited by student groups is the issue of indebtedness, which has been addressed by several of the panel members. This cannot be discussed on its own; it must be viewed in the context of students' post-study income, and their ability to service the debt without crowding out other important life considerations.

Here I would just ask the committee to recognize that when we speak of “post-secondary” education, we most frequently mean “university”. In fact, loans are also provided to people attending colleges and private trade and vocational schools. However, the rates of return on those educational investments are not the same as at the university level, because the students' abilities to retire debt are somewhat different. We need to treat the income along with the debt.

Some other critical issues in increasing access are part-time education, and financial assistance for such part-time learners. As well, we should look at the fundamentals of how assistance will be developed to support Canada as a nation of lifelong learners. In fact, the provinces, the territories, and the federal government have formed a working group to look at this last point.

[Translation]

Very quickly, I would like to make a few additional general comments with respect to the second theme examined by the committee, namely, mobility.

The Government of Canada fully supports the principle of mobility. This is why the Canada students loans programs are completely transferable throughout the country, and internationally. Pursuant to the social union framework agreement, the various governments have made a commitment to put an end to any new barriers to mobility.

[English]

But having said that, we know that barriers to interprovincial mobility do exist. They include differences in tuition levels, non-transferability of learning credits, and non-portability of student financial assistance in some jurisdictions.

We believe the best way to eliminate these barriers is to continue to work with our provincial and territorial partners in developing and implementing harmonized and integrated programs. To date we have had some success, but we will need to explore this further.

In terms of iternational mobility, we send a very, very insignificant portion of our Canadian student population abroad—far less than other OECD countries do. Of those that do go to study outside Canada, the vast majority go to the United States.

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair, for listening to these remarks. I'm open to questions.

The Chair: Thank you, Thomas.

We'll proceed to the questions. The way it usually works on this committee is that we go from side to side, with roughly five minutes for each exchange. Colleagues, we'll keep to that, and we'll get around two or three times.

We'll start with Carol Skelton, then Raymonde Folco, Paul Crête, Diane St-Jacques, Pat Martin, and then back to the chair.

Ms. Carol Skelton (Saskatoon—Rosetown—Biggar, Canadian Alliance): Mr. Townsend, do you have with you the HRDC number for the size of the average Canadian student loan?

Mr. Thomas Townsend: I do, but it will take me a moment to get it for you.

Ms. Carol Skelton: That's good.

Mr. Finnie, you said the average student loan in Canada was $3,000 to $6,000?

Dr. Ross Finnie: That's averaged over both borrowers and non-borrowers. For those who finished school with loans, the averages are $9,000 to $14,000.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Do you have a figure for how long it takes them to pay off those loans?

Dr. Ross Finnie: Well, yes and no. From the data I've been working with, we only know how much has been repaid by two years after graduation. But those rates are surprisingly high: 40% to 50%. Those loans are normally amortized over ten years. So most students are paying them off much more quickly than the standard payment schedule would suggest.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Do you have a figure for how many loans are written off as non-receivable?

Dr. Ross Finnie: Not from recent data. But in a book I wrote with my colleague Saul Schwartz, we estimated that the default rate at that time, in the mid-1990s, was 20% to 25% in terms of the number of people. But in the end, after the defaults were sent for collection, really it was only about 7% of the overall funds.

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However, the situation has changed since that time, and the themes emphasized here... I don't know the solid data on it and I don't know if anyone does, but it seems that a lot of the problems are not with your average college or university students at any level. They are with, one, those who drop out, who don't make it through so they don't have the benefits of the education; and secondly, those at those small private colleges with very high tuitions and eight-month programs. That would seem to be where a lot of the problem is in the default rates in the last couple of years.

Ms. Carol Skelton: But the demographics of the students who attend those private vocational schools are different. Would you not agree with me? We have a different type of student or a different—

Dr. Ross Finnie: Absolutely.

Ms. Carol Skelton: There are a lot of single mothers going to those schools. There are different demographics for those students.

Dr. Ross Finnie: Yes. I've not seen a good analysis of that type of debt. I could speculate, but I don't want to.

Ms. Carol Skelton: President Davenport.

Mr. Paul Davenport: I think Ross' data are from an earlier year. On what year would your data on average debt loads be based?

Dr. Ross Finnie: The most recent data are for 1995. So debt levels would have risen... No, let me put it in context, if I can just respond to that. Tuition levels have been rising. That's clear in my document here and in the paper. The students would have had higher borrowing limits. If you do those sorts of adjustments, that would get you to an average debt level of around $19,000. Other numbers I've seen are consistent with that. On the other hand we also have the millennium scholarship money. That's going the other way. It's hard to say. No one knows, but I would say that the average debt level now, if I had to speculate, would be a little under $20,000.

Ms. Carol Skelton: President Davenport, you were making a comment.

Mr. Paul Davenport: We survey our students every year at graduation. We ask them a number of questions, and one is, what's your educational debt load? The disadvantage of my numbers is that it's a partial survey. I get about a 35% response rate. Also, it's a self-judgment. It's not an actual statement from OSAP or anything. It's what the student thinks he owes. Those numbers have gone up significantly since 1995. Our average debt load over all the undergraduate students would be about $16,000 right now, and for those students who borrow it would be about $24,000.

Those are manageable debt loads. They get paid back. As I mentioned earlier, in 1996 the default rate in Ontario was about 12%. It's now under 9%, and at my university it's under 8%. So we don't have an enormous problem, as Ross said, with defaults.

But we're not doing a good job in helping the minority of students who need help after graduation. The problem with that is that a young person in high school can know about a friend who was forced into default or might be so and say, my goodness, I don't know that I want to go there.

Let's erase that problem. Let's go to a real income-contingent system and say to students, look, we're going to ask you to pay tuition and to borrow, but society is going to share the risk with you. We're going to help you out. If you run into trouble afterwards, we'll be there for you.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Mr. Townsend.

Mr. Thomas Townsend: It's the peril of being the government representative. I have to give the real number.

The Chair: Thomas, quite briefly, if you could.

Mr. Thomas Townsend: Just to give you the range, this is per year average borrowing Canada student loan. It does not include loans from other sources. I'll give you the decade. It started in 1989-90 at $2,787, just a little under $3,000, and in 1998-99 it was at $4,654, about $4,500. Most students in a four-year program borrow three years. The average indebtedness for a university program is in the order of $13,000 of Canada student loans. Altogether it's about $17,000. There are tremendous variations province to province because some provinces have extraordinarily generous grant systems. I think Quebec has a loan ceiling that keeps its indebtedness down.

Ms. Carol Skelton: Thank you.

The Chair: Raymonde Folco.

[Translation]

Ms. Raymonde Folco (Laval West, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My question deals with an entirely different issue. We need to ask this question, on the one hand, because this committee is also looking at the situation of disabled individuals and, on the other hand, I very recently met with a group of Aboriginal people, who were concerned about the place of Aboriginal people in post-secondary education institutions.

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My question is addressed not only to the individuals representing the department, but also to the researchers representing the universities. To what extent do the disabled and Aboriginal people have access to post-secondary education? This is a big question, but I think it is one that we need to ask.

[English]

The Chair: Paul Davenport, and then Ross.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Davenport: In Ontario, I think that there are physical factors that have an impact on the disabled and financial factors for all the groups that tend to be excluded or under-represented in the universities.

As for the physical factors, I can assure you that every year we are investing, at the University of Western Ontario and elsewhere a considerable amount of money to ensure that people can circulate throughout the campus in their wheelchair, that students with hearing or speech problems obtain assistance, etc.

Let's turn to the issue of funding. Over the past six years, we have had, in Ontario, to earmark 30% of each increase in tuition to a loan and bursary fund for students with very big needs. Currently, the university has approximately $10 million to help needy people and families.

Consequently, we have, in addition to the loans and bursaries, $10 million to help people facing very big problems. I think that, as far as Aboriginal people are concerned, the biggest obstacle is not really a financial one. At the University of Western Ontario, we need to make a greater effort to meet these young people at the high school level, to talk with their families about the opportunities provided by university, and to tell them that we are open and that we hope that they attend our university. I don't think that this is a financial issue per se, but one of human contact, if I can describe it that way.

[English]

The Chair: Ross.

[Translation]

Mr. Ross Finnie: Unfortunately, I do not have any information. I am not aware of any analysis of these issues, but in one or two years, we will have improved our knowledge of these groups.

[English]

The Chair: Raymonde, could I interpose a very short remark?

It's difficult to reply to, but Thomas mentioned the fact that we should consider the colleges. And it does seem to me, if you're dealing, for example, with aboriginal people, that the colleges are a very important sector. In the case of my riding, I have some sense of the involvement of aboriginal students in the colleges, but I know it's not as well organized, from a federal point of view, as it is with the universities. Can any of you comment on that?

Thomas Townsend.

Mr. Thomas Townsend: Yes. I have some data. There is some good news. I'll speak first about aboriginals, and then about persons with disabilities. The good news is that there has been a considerable increase in the number of high school graduates. If we look at 1996, it was just a little over 20%, now it's in the mid-30s.

[Translation]

Let us talk about the Aboriginal people. Between 1986 and 1996, there was a significant increase in the number of Aboriginal post-secondary graduates. However, the number of Aboriginal university graduates has not increased very much. However, as the Chair indicated, the number of people who have received a degree or a college diploma has jumped by slightly more than 10%, and now stands at nearly 20%.

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Hence there has been some progress made, but when you compare Aboriginal people to other groups in general, you can see that a lot of work remains to be done. And to make progress, it is essential that we remove many of the non-financial barriers. We have to demonstrate the value of this level of education and review the way that we prepare students at the post-secondary level. We also have to provide for some type of support for the Aboriginal person who has to leave home in order to attend university. These factors are very important.

With respect to disabled people, Scott quoted some statistics. He talked about mobility limitations. There should not be any difference between this group and the general population at this level, but there is. We have done a great deal over the past few years in terms of financial assistance, but we need to do much more to eliminate non-financial barriers.

[English]

The Chair: We must move on, Raymonde. We're almost seven minutes, Raymonde.

We did invite representatives of the Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development. They were unable to come today. I think we might well ask them, if they can do it very quickly, to submit something in writing about that.

Similarly, Thomas, the chart that you had or any of you who have information of that type, if you can get it to us quickly, we would be most grateful.

Is it a comment or a question?

Ms. Raymonde Folco: A comment.

[Translation]

From what has been said about the Aboriginal people, I gather that they are, generally speaking, of course, at the point where a generation is now ready to study—moreover it is already doing so—at what we call a cégep in Quebec, namely, at the pre-university level. This generation does not seem ready to study at the university level. Aren't any efforts underway to get them to this point? Am I mistaken?

The Chair: Mr. Paul Crête.

Mr. Paul Crête (Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup—Témiscouata—Les Basques, BQ): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to welcome the people who have come to testify, particularly Mr. Davenport, whose university has ran a language school in Trois-Pistoles for nearly 70 years. I hope that this school will be maintained for many more years to come.

My question deals with the problem of striking a balance between the funding that the university gets and the income generated from student tuition. I had trouble understanding Mr. Finnie's perspective, when he spoke earlier. I had the impression that he was wearing rose-coloured glasses. I understood better when he said that the statistics were from 1995.

This is when governments started making major changes.

I would like the witnesses, particularly Mr. Davenport and perhaps Ms. Delorme as well, to comment on how we should go about striking a balance between the direct funding that universities receive from the governments and the contribution made students, because that has a major impact, in my opinion, on accessibility. The departmental representative stated that Ms. Stewart had indicated that, in the future, only one out of seventeen jobs would not require a high school diploma and that the great majority of people would have to have some post-secondary education. What formula do we need to use to reach such an objective? There are numerous indicators that, in several sectors, the rural regions, the Aboriginal and disabled communities, the results are clearly below what we would like to see.

I would like to know your opinion on this issue.

Ms. Denise Doherty Delorme: We know that post-secondary education is absolutely necessary. Currently, the system is spending a great deal of money in the form of tax credits or bursaries to invest in the family, but we never know if you are going to be able to count on this money after the studies, because all the money is allocated once the studies have been completed, and that changes every year.

Educational tax credits have increased, but tuition goes up every year, and we don't know if it will continue to rise. Everything always happens afterwards. We know that many people are so afraid of accumulating debts that they don't even think about attending a college or university.

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Tax credits and the other programs currently cost the federal government $4 billion. Students spend just about the same amount on tuition fees. Without spending another single dollar, the federal government could immediately eliminate all tuition costs without the assistance of the provinces. This would be fair and would constitute a real social initiative. Abolishing tuition fees would be profitable not only for the students but also for innovation, creativity and the future of Canada.

A few very wealthy students can afford the cost of attending university. This is already occurring. In addition, we are paying for their tax credits. Tuition has risen the most in Ontario and Nova Scotia. If you take a look at tax credits for tuition, you will see that the federal government gives more money to these two provinces, more money is given to people who have more money, because not everybody can use a tax credit. You need to have an adequate income to do so. Poor people don't use this credit. We are therefore paying for the provinces that have a great deal of money and we are paying for the people who have a lot of money. We really do need to eliminate tuition fees. That would resolve the entire problem, and we wouldn't need to turn to a loans and bursary system in the future.

Mr. Paul Davenport: I think, sir, that we need to strike a balance between tuition and public funding. This is a societal choice.

Twelve years ago, in Ontario, nearly 10% of our operating costs were covered by tuition. Today, this percentage has jumped to one-third or 35%. It has risen dramatically. I feel that one-third or 35% is reasonable. This increase, which has been occurring for 12 years, must therefore stop but the current situation is very livable. I am hoping that the next revenue increases for universities will come not from tuition but from public funding.

Let's take a look at Europe. Let's examine the countries that are most like us, with the same level of development, but with very low tuition. In most of these countries, fewer students attend university than here. Let's take the example of France, that I know well. France has a good university system. Let's take a look at its young people, namely people between the ages of 25 and 34. In France, 14% of this population have a university degree. In Canada, the figure is 23%, and we charge tuition. By financing students properly, we increase the universities ability to take in students.

Gentlemen, we must therefore find this balance. I think that the balance that we have achieved currently in Ontario is justifiable, but that means that significant revenue must, in future, come from public funding. We cannot always look to the students.

Mr. Paul Crête: I would like to know if there is a graph comparing the impact of the Quebec loan and bursary system to that of Canada. Every time we hear from student associations, they attest to the fact that the Quebec system leads to lower indebtedness than the Canadian system. Do you have any comments to make on this issue?

[English]

The Chair: This has to be very brief, Thomas.

[Translation]

Mr. Thomas Townsend: Quebec's system is very generous to those receiving loans and bursaries. However, under this system, far fewer students have access to loans and bursaries than in the other provinces. That ties into what Paul has just said. At times we have very good access, but it costs. It's better to charge lower tuition fees, but then you get a system that is more restricted. Many aspects of the Quebec system are very good.

• 1250

[English]

The Chair: Thomas, if you have any references or reports or statistics on that, we would be most interested to receive them.

Ross, very briefly.

[Translation]

Mr. Ross Finnie: I have a breakdown of student debt by province that I could send to the committee later.

[English]

The Chair: We would be most grateful, Ross, for that.

It's Diane St-Jacques and then Pat Martin.

[Translation]

Ms. Diane St-Jacques (Shefford, Lib.): Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

My question deals with mobility problems. I would like to know, initially, what are the biggest problems facing students. I would also like to know what is being done currently and what are the recommendations. I know, Mr. Finnie, that you said you had prepared a recommendation report. I would like you to explain what recommendations you made in your report.

Mr. Ross Finnie: That is something else, but there is quite a bit of mobility amongst the student population. For example, according to the latest data, mobility for a school attendance was between 6 and 6.5% on the whole for Canada. For those who are in another province, five years after graduating, the figures are around 15%, 14%, 13%.

Where do they go? That is an important question. Generally speaking, they go to the province nearest their own, but there are two target provinces: Nova Scotia and Ontario. This is all tied to the issue of tuition costs and grants for post-secondary education. For example, a high proportion of Ontario youths go to Nova Scotia to attend school, which costs Nova Scotia a great deal of money. Perhaps we should set up a reimbursement system or something similar to encourage that. Right now, for the provinces, there are costs associated with admitting students from other provinces. Perhaps we shouldn't have these costs. The government should support that to encourage student mobility.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: In Quebec, I know that there is an additional charge for a student who comes from another province. Do other provinces use this formula or is Quebec the only one to do so?

Mr. Ross Finnie: I do not know. I think that that may be the case in British Columbia.

Mr. Thomas Townsend: There are several restrictions. In Quebec, particularly for students at the masters and doctoral levels, the system is very generous. It is not as generous for undergraduates. In British Columbia, it is very very restrictive. In Alberta, it is quite restrictive. In Saskatchewan, it is not as restrictive, but it varies a great deal. It is primarily because, for example, in Quebec, there are programs with restricted admission; hence, they do not subsidize students who come from outside the province of Quebec for this type of program. In addition, if the program exists in Quebec, the government is not as interested in providing loans and bursaries to individuals who pursue the studies outside of Quebec.

It would be important for the committee to consider the fact that a certain amount of mobility amongst citizens pursuing a post- secondary education is good as it leads to a better understanding of our country. Many of us here today have studied outside of our province of residence. This gives you an experience of Canada which is very important later on. There are fewer and fewer situations where students pursue their studies outside of their province of residence. I do not think that this is very good for the country in general.

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: There is not enough assistance. There is not an adequate number of programs or adequate openness.

Mr. Thomas Townsend: Financial assistance is very important.

[English]

The Chair: Could I interject a little question?

• 1255

Our notes say that there's a net immigration of students into Nova Scotia and Quebec. Would it be true to say that the reason for that is that Nova Scotia encourages, because of the particular university system, students to come in and Quebec does not encourage students to go out?

Mr. Thomas Townsend: Nova Scotia has a cottage industry in post-secondary—

The Chair: Yes, I understand that.

Mr. Thomas Townsend: —and in fact it has some of the highest tuitions in the country. But it's willing to admit students with somewhat lower qualifications than perhaps other institutions would be. So people who can't get into Paul's place can go to some of the institutions in Nova Scotia.

With Quebec, there are high-quality institutions in Quebec. McGill would be an example, as an English institution, and Laval and Université de Montréal. But you find a lot more English people going into Quebec. There it is all up. Because of living costs in Montreal, McGill represents one of the best values for a post-secondary education in the country.

The Chair: Okay.

Diane, it's your turn.

[Translation]

Ms. Diane St-Jacques: My question pertains to another area. It is for Mr. Townsend.

You talked about on-going or life-long learning. Did I understand you correctly? If so, what do you mean by that exactly?

Mr. Thomas Townsend: We used to have a concept whereby the student, after finishing high school, would begin post-secondary studies immediately. We see that this will be the situation more and more, but when you get to a certain point in a career, you will need to further your education. Our system is not very well designed to recognize this type of person who has assets, such as a house, cars, who has expenditures other than those associated with the cost of studying, and who has obligations such as children. Our system of loans and bursaries in Canada does not recognize this type of student very well. Hence we need to think more along those lines.

[English]

The Chair: Paul Davenport.

[Translation]

Mr. Paul Davenport: On the issue of mobility, Madam, I would like to add a little something on the issue of international mobility raised by Mr. Townsend earlier.

It's truly unfortunate that there are so few university students who can work or study outside of Canada, more specifically outside of North America, either in Europe or in Asia. You asked whether there were any suggested policies in these areas. Yes, there are. The Canadian Association of Universities and Colleges suggested that a fund be created, quite modest to start, to the tune of $20 million per year. This would be funded by the federal government, and there would be $2,000 for each student who studies outside of North American for a period of six months. In that way, you would encourage people to go to Europe, to Asia, etc. It would be a very good thing, not only for our university systems, but also for our students. If I can address you in Canada's other official language, it is because when I was a student I had the opportunity to study in France for six months. And that experience changed my life in many ways. So the issue of international mobility must be kept to the fore.

[English]

The Chair: Pat Martin.

Mr. Pat Martin: Thank you, Mr. Chair.

And thank all of you for a very interesting morning so far.

It seems to me that sometime in the last century people figured that you needed your grade 12 to get by in the world to a reasonable degree for taking part in the workforce, etc., so we passed the public schools acts, and we said that it would be free—free of charge. But now everything I read and all the experts I meet say that you need at least 16 or even 17 years of education to get by in a reasonable way in the workforce today. So what, then, is the barrier, or why isn't there a huge national hue and cry for free tuition to extend the idea of the public schools acts to include at least your first university degree? I'm just wondering whether there are any good arguments against why there shouldn't be free tuition now that we're in a surplus situation and we can in fact afford it.

I also have a question on mobility, so if you could answer that briefly, I can look it up if you can tell me where there's a good argument against free tuition.

The Chair: Paul Davenport.

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Mr. Paul Davenport: There are two sorts of arguments. One has to do with equity—it's just not fair.

Mr. Pat Martin: It isn't fair to have—

Mr. Paul Davenport: It's not fair. Only about one third of our population gets a university degree, even in the provinces with the highest participation rates, and those people, after they get a degree, have a much higher average income than the population that doesn't have one.

I remember meeting Bob Rae during my first year at Western—indeed, it was my first month at Western—and Mr. Rae, who was then Premier of Ontario, gave me a good hour in his office. He's an impressive intellect. I said, “You know, Premier, the problem with your controls on tuition is that you're imposing taxes on the taxi driver who brought me to your office to subsidize to an undue degree, I believe, the attendance of my children at university”. I think he intellectually agreed with that argument. So it's just fair. People who take advantage of this costly system that will pay them large returns in the future should pay a fair share. I said I thought a third or so—

Mr. Pat Martin: Maybe that taxi driver would have gone to university if the tuition had been free.

Mr. Paul Davenport: That's the second thing. Those countries that don't have tuition just put less money into university. They can't afford to create all the places we've created in Canada. Then the barrier becomes having very high grades to get in or very high grades to remain in, as you have in France. You have the situation where the highest tuition countries—Canada and the United States—also have the highest participation.

So those are the two arguments. We need the money to create the places, and indeed people who are going to benefit from the education should have some stake in paying for it.

The Chair: Denise.

Ms. Denise Doherty-Delorme: Yes, the people who do benefit from post-secondary education should certainly pay for it. The research done by Bob Allen at the University of British Columbia has shown that whatever the degree—this is university level—the people graduating pay substantially more in income tax afterwards—so much more that they actually pay for their education in full and then more after. We already have an actual system of paying for post-secondary education called our income tax system, and if we delay some of these tax cuts that have been announced, then the system will remain equitable.

Other countries have a poor participation rate in post-secondary education because they have a greater variety of places to go after high school. They have apprenticeship programs. They have greater on-the-job training programs. Canada has an abysmal record of on-the-job training programs. The only really two courses of action after high school right now in Canada are college or university. So we have a high participation rate. If we develop other programs, people who are better suited to go to other programs will go there. We're not saying that everyone should go to college or university. There are other programs available. But there are people now who are suited for college or university who cannot attain it.

There are people who are struggling so much that their lives and the lives of their children are so adversely affected. We're talking again of a small minority, but we're doing nothing to help them. That is causing people as early as grade six or seven to not even think about attending, because they know about the high debt loads. They know that tuition fees keep rising in Ontario and Nova Scotia. Quebec has done a good job, and so has British Columbia, at keeping tuition fees down, but it's never a guarantee. It must be at the entry level that the tuition fees are taken out.

The Chair: Ross.

Dr. Ross Finnie: We believe everyone should drink milk too, but we don't give milk away. There are many things in society we don't give away—

Mr. Pat Martin: I don't follow that.

Dr. Ross Finnie: Okay, the logic is there are lots of things that we believe people have to have access to, but we don't drop the price to the entire population so that a small group can have access—in this case to buy milk—or into the post-secondary system. We don't make it free for everyone. Instead, we put a price out there. The current price is only about a third, as Paul was saying before. So you drop that price by two-thirds. You set a price out there, and then you help those people who need it.

If governments were putting all the money that was necessary into the post-secondary system in terms of quality and access, then maybe we could think about moving towards a full grant, tuition-free system. That might make sense. We're in a situation where there's not enough money going towards those who really need it to get them into the system, and there's not enough money going towards universities in terms of quality and access. So I'd say that before we even begin to think about making tuition free, we should be thinking about putting money into this system to improve access for those people who really need it, which includes loan relief. That's a common thing coming up today, it seems to me. That would be money well spent that would do much more in terms of increasing access to the system.

The Chair: Your mobility question will have to be very short. You had a mobility question, you said.

Mr. Pat Martin: Yes.

The Chair: Very quickly.

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Mr. Pat Martin: Okay, in the briefest of ways.

Is there a movement afoot and are efforts being made to integrate the colleges and the universities so that a student could do his year one and year two in his hometown at the community college and transfer that credit easily to the university as he gets a little older? Are you seeing this? Is it a good idea?

The Chair: Paul.

Mr. Paul Davenport: I'd say, Mr. Martin, there are two models in Canada. One is the Alberta model, where they actually hire PhDs in the colleges. You can go to Red Deer or Grande Prairie and get an education taught by a PhD teacher that prepares you very well for university. There's very easy transfer in the liberal arts and sciences right across the board from the colleges into the Alberta universities.

In my province, Ontario, we've taken a different tack. We've created 17 different universities. So we've got a lot of universities. Our college transfers then generally require some degree of university and college agreement. At my university we've got Fanshawe College, a very fine college in the city of London. We have an agreement now that allows students to begin nursing at Fanshawe and then complete at Western. We have agreements in electronics and physics where they do joint degrees. We have agreements in the visual arts. Fanshawe has terrific programs in hands-on creativity. We have art history, so students do joint degrees.

They are the two models. Either one can work.

The Chair: Thomas, briefly.

Mr. Thomas Townsend: There are some very fine examples of being able to articulate college diplomas to university degrees. The general situation is not good. It's good in Alberta, as Paul had mentioned. It's good in British Columbia.

Mr. Pat Martin: Yes, I've heard B.C.

Mr. Thomas Townsend: There's very little to say positive elsewhere. Quebec has an excellent system, CEGEP through university. But the rest is not a good news story.

The Chair: I have a few questions of my own.

I want to say to Denise that we're hoping to extend these round tables into the apprenticeship area, because we've been very involved with EI recently. That's the meeting we came from.

I'm a bit concerned about the statistical stuff. I'm pleased to hear that it's getting better. Scott, I assume the census and all of that, you know... No? He shakes his head.

Even if it is getting better, it's going to be a long time until we can actually use this information. This is an important topic we're dealing with. For example, the question of who is not going into colleges and universities is very important.

Are there ways, given the nature of Confederation and given the fact that each province is so different, to find samples or something you could use, or proxy information you could use, that we could get at this stuff relatively soon, say within a year?

Mr. Scott Murray: A year? We're getting close.

I'll give you a little more background. The barriers are really taste, which are intergenerational. About 15% of the variance in participation rates is attributable to what education the previous generation got, their parents. There are other barriers, including cost and geography. Then there are barriers Thomas alluded to, ability-related, whether they have the literacy skills and other cognitive skills to participate. In about a year we'll know those things from a variety of longitudinal sources that have big enough samples and good enough measurement.

The Chair: Meanwhile, in B.C. we've had the low tuition thing, and we have effective movement between college and university, if that's the right way to put it. So we've got a sample. Can we look at that and say that in terms of mobility this is what's happened there, or in terms of low tuition this is what happened there? Can't we just do that now?

Mr. Scott Murray: No, we can't.

The Chair: Okay.

Mr. Scott Murray: The mechanics are being put in place as we speak. We have a deal with the institutions that will track every post-secondary student through their entire career and then into the workforce. That's a census of every post-secondary person. We'll be able to look at access, persistence, debt levels, and default rates. But that is, from a public works kind of thing, a major undertaking involving every post-secondary institution in the country, including, we hope, the private sector ones.

There is no simple answer. The thing that's the most frail that I'm worried about is just to keep the money in place to make sure that the progress we've made in the last two years in putting these in place doesn't evaporate.

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One role the federal government can play that the provinces seem unwilling to play is in this data development area.

Dr. Ross Finnie: The problem is simple to explain. The technical problem is basically you need to link who goes and who doesn't to their family backgrounds. That is the essence of it. You have to be able to do it in sufficient numbers to get reasonable estimates.

The usual database is out there. They ask about what you're doing now, or maybe your full level of education, but they don't then ask back about what your socio-economic background was when you were a teenager in the formative years. So that requires a special kind of database that does that. Then in turn, if you want to ask about the role of financing in that and money and all of that sort of thing, that requires extra questions.

That's why the general databases that are out there, including the census—I was shaking my head—don't provide those sorts of numbers. At most they tell you who is in the system, and what they look like now. But that doesn't get at these other numbers.

The Chair: Paul.

Mr. Paul Davenport: I just want to underline the importance of what Scott and Ross have said.

One of the big issues I face as a university president is the concern that as fees have gone up over the last decade from $2,000 to $4,000 for the average student, the student body is changing in a way that reduces participation by low-income families. We know overall participation has gone up. The macro figure we can see. But we can't get at that issue of family income. We try to do it with indirect studies, postal codes and that sort of thing, but the fact is students borrow in Ontario often without formally submitting any kind of tax return or anything else from their family.

We just don't have the information. So to the degree that Statistics Canada can get access to that link between university participation and the family income—not just the student's income, but the family income—there are an awful lot of people interested in that issue in our country.

The Chair: Thomas.

Mr. Thomas Townsend: I was just talking with Scott. We've done a tremendous amount of work in terms of designing the kinds of systems that would be necessary to routinely answer these questions. In fact the design of that is at a very high level of development. If the committee would be interested in hearing the boring side of our work, which is trying to create the information necessary to inform policy discussion, we'd be happy to do so.

The Chair: I don't think we need the long briefing, but as I said before, if any of you have papers, or stuff that we could use now on this topic... I mean, we've got a good feel for it, but if there's something short you could present us that we could incorporate into our report, we would. It seems to me it's extremely important.

I was going to ask—I'm not going to—about your thoughts on these lifelong learning accounts, which are in the Speech from the Throne and have not been fleshed out yet. That's there. I was going to ask about indirect cost of research versus the federal government having some control over the transfers of moneys that we transfer to the provinces but in fact do not appear to be going to the colleges and the universities, but I can't.

I want to thank you all very much for taking this time. As I've mentioned, we have two more meetings on this topic and then we'll be releasing a report. You will certainly be acknowledged. If I can simply repeat, any information you have in the next short period of time that you think would be useful, please do submit it to us.

The committee's adjourned at the call of the chair. Thank you very much.