Year off makes little difference after grad
Recent research has shown that students who take a year off before enrolling in college are just as likely as those who go straight to post-secondary from high school to find a job after graduation.
The study, ‘Taking time off between high school and postsecondary education: Determinant and early labour market outcomes,' done by Statistics Canada took a look at whether or not delaying entry into college or university after high school had an effect on a students ability to find a job upon graduation.
“We call them gappers,” said Kathryn McMullen, the Chief of education matters and analysis centre for education statistics at Statistics Canada and assisted with the research. “It refers to students who take an additional year off before going into university, so they could be taking extra classes, or working to earn money before they make that commitment.
“This report looked at people between 22 and 24 years of age who have finished their post-secondary education, and we asked them to tell us how they were doing job-wise. So in the end we have the employment rates and average income.”
What the study revealed was that overall employment for non-students between the ages of 22 and 24 in 2003 were around 80 per cent, but a deeper look showed some slight differences between gappers and non-gappers.
Non-gappers who went to university only had a 79.6 per cent employment rate versus their gapper counterparts who had a 87.6 per cent rate. However the non-gappers earned $625 a week compared to the gappers $540.
College students however had a very small difference in both employment rates and weekly earnings between the two groups. Gappers who graduated college had an 86.2 per cent employment rate and earnings of $550 a week versus non-gappers who made $552 a week with 85.1 per cent employment.
The study also showed a few differences between both rural and urban students and females and males.
“Students from rural areas were less likely to go to university than their urban counterparts,” McMullen explained. “It has mostly to do with geography, because the universities tend to be in large city centres, so they're inaccessible, whereas community colleges can be found in smaller cities.”
Almost 40 per cent of rural students do not go on to complete post-secondary compared to only 29 per cent of their urban counterparts. As for the two genders, 35.6 per cent of males and 25.4 per cent of females did not complete either college or university, regardless of their residence.
The study, ‘Taking time off between high school and postsecondary education: Determinant and early labour market outcomes,' done by Statistics Canada took a look at whether or not delaying entry into college or university after high school had an effect on a students ability to find a job upon graduation.
“We call them gappers,” said Kathryn McMullen, the Chief of education matters and analysis centre for education statistics at Statistics Canada and assisted with the research. “It refers to students who take an additional year off before going into university, so they could be taking extra classes, or working to earn money before they make that commitment.
“This report looked at people between 22 and 24 years of age who have finished their post-secondary education, and we asked them to tell us how they were doing job-wise. So in the end we have the employment rates and average income.”
What the study revealed was that overall employment for non-students between the ages of 22 and 24 in 2003 were around 80 per cent, but a deeper look showed some slight differences between gappers and non-gappers.
Non-gappers who went to university only had a 79.6 per cent employment rate versus their gapper counterparts who had a 87.6 per cent rate. However the non-gappers earned $625 a week compared to the gappers $540.
College students however had a very small difference in both employment rates and weekly earnings between the two groups. Gappers who graduated college had an 86.2 per cent employment rate and earnings of $550 a week versus non-gappers who made $552 a week with 85.1 per cent employment.
The study also showed a few differences between both rural and urban students and females and males.
“Students from rural areas were less likely to go to university than their urban counterparts,” McMullen explained. “It has mostly to do with geography, because the universities tend to be in large city centres, so they're inaccessible, whereas community colleges can be found in smaller cities.”
Almost 40 per cent of rural students do not go on to complete post-secondary compared to only 29 per cent of their urban counterparts. As for the two genders, 35.6 per cent of males and 25.4 per cent of females did not complete either college or university, regardless of their residence.
