Most Canadian parents have had to assume a larger share of the financial costs of their children's post-secondary education because of declining government funding and changing loans and bursary programs. Preparing for Post-Secondary Education considers the impact of increased private support and the planning strategies parents use based on information from a 1999 Statistics Canada national survey of 34,000 households. The contributors begin by examining changes to national and international educational funding policies and the relationship between public and private costs. They focus on the role of families in marshaling the necessary resources, demonstrating that access to post-secondary education is also determined by social capital. The authors conclude that new partnerships between parents, the state, and schools are redefining the various players' roles and commitments to the educational futures of Canadian children. Contributors include the late Stephen Bell (York University), Scott Davies (McMaster University), Ross Finnie (Queen's University), George Frempong (York University), Dianne Looker (Acadia University), Nancy Mandell (York University), Sheila Marshall (University of British Columbia), Hans Schuetze (University of British Columbia), Victor Thiessen (Dalhousie University), Jim White (University of British Columbia), and Jamie Wood (University of British Columbia).

This paper focuses on the private career college sector in British Columbia, which has sometimes attracted controversy. Some institutions have been perceived as providing high quality education and as good corporate citizens, while a few have been seen as rogue operators that tarnish the reputation of the entire sector. The circumstances under which students receive government financial aid, and the causes of high default rates, have periodically prompted articles in the popular press. In the past two decades, debate has occurred as to the need for various types of regulation for English as a Second Language schools and the protection of British Columbia's reputation in the international education market.

Community colleges evolved in Canada during the "golden years" of educational innovation between 1960 and 1975. A diversity of factors - historical, socio-economic, political and educational - contributed to the development of college systems with distinctive goals and structures. This book is the first up-to-date and comprehensive study of a potent national educational and social phenomenon, largely unknown and largely unappreciated. The authors describe provincial and territorial college systems as they have evolved to 1985, discussing problems particular to each system and evaluating the extent to which often idealistic early goals have been realized. They identify key issues which are critical to the future of these systems and which, if ignored, will undermine community college education across Canada. These include accessibility, identity, relations with governments, management and leadership, and evaluation and accountability. In each case the authors draw upon their own expertise and experience to describe directions for resolution of these issues. The book contains a comprehensive and topical bibliography of both published and unpublished material related to many aspects of Canadian community college development. It also includes a French language bibliography. Unique in many aspects, this book is designed to interest both graduate and undergraduate students in adult and higher education and administration as well as those directly involved in community colleges, government education ministries and a broad lay public.

The "Where Did They Go?" study, co-funded by the BC Council on Admissions and Transfer (BCCAT) and the Canadian Council on Learning (CCL), was designed to complement research undertaken under the auspices of the Student Transitions Project (STP) which has tracked the public post-secondary participation of BC high school graduates from 2002/03 to the present. The co-funders were interested in better understanding (a) other post-secondary destinations outside of the BC public system, and (b) the intentions of high school students who have "not continued" on to post-secondary education after graduation from high school. Forty-two percent of British Columbia's 2005/06 high school graduation cohort had not registered at a public post-secondary institution by the end of the fall term of 2007. Of these, 2,018 were surveyed in March 2008 by R.A. Malatest and Associates Ltd. in order to learn more about these graduates. This was done under contract with the Ministry of Education which provided Malatest with the graduate data necessary to conduct a random sample. The survey was modelled on one developed by the Fraser Region Consortium (FRC) with their permission. That study examined the further education destinations, intentions, and attitudes of 2003/04 BC high school graduates from the Fraser Region of the province who did not transition to public post-secondary education in BC by the following year (Heslop, 2006). A small subcommittee guiding the "Where Did They Go?" study made modifications to the original survey instrument (see Appendix F), which was then implemented across the province with a sampling strategy based on six regions. This report describes the survey methodology, the sample, and key research findings. When interpreting the results, the reader should be aware that the provincial level findings are statistically significant; however, those at the regional level are not. A number of appendices augment information in the body of the report. Appended are: (1) Overview of Results; (2) Detailed Tables by Post-Secondary Status; (3) Detailed Tables by Region; (4) Occupational Categories of Positions Held by Employed Respondents; (5) References; and (6) Malatest Methodology Report and Survey Instrument. (Contains 31 figures and 33 tables.).