Minority the majority

Minority students outweigh non-minority at post-secondary institutions

Chelse McKee and Morgan Modjeski, staff

Statistics Canada has found that more students from visible minorities have attended post-secondary education than have caucasian students, according to a report published on Nov. 29.

The report stated that 78 per cent of caucasians between the ages of 24-26 had attended some post-secondary education, 87 per cent of minority students had.

To Reyad Attiyet, a University 1 student as well as a practicing Muslim, that number isn’t surprising.

“For minorities [universities are] more important,” she said. “A lot of these students have come to Canada and have a future here and be able to support their families.”

However, things south of the border are different. According to a survey of graduate enrolment, conducted by the Graduate Record Examinations Board and the Council of Graduate Schools, there are just a little over 200,000 white, non-Hispanic students enrolled in graduate studies but only close to 74,000 minority students enrolled for the first time in graduate studies in the United States.

A survey released through Youth in Transition in 2006, stated that 79 per cent of 15-year-old minority students aspired to at least one degree in higher education, but only 57 per cent of non-minority students aspired any further than high school.

Harvey Krahn, a professor of sociology at the University of Alberta and one of the main researchers on the survey, theorized that the parents of the students could have some effect on the higher educational desires of the students polled.

“Many [parents] are first- or second-generation immigrants,” Krahn said. “What we found in our research and in several studies was that often that immigrants come into Canada, despite being selected for their high education and their training and skills, frequently have trouble getting jobs in those areas because their credentials aren’t recognized in Canada. Sometimes we think parents, well-educated immigrant parents, might not be working at the level that they were trained for and would like to . . . try even harder to encourage their children to get a good education so that their children can get the opportunities that the parents themselves could not get.”

According to the Youth in Transition survey, 88 per cent of parents of a visible minority hoped that their children would acquire a university education, while 57 per cent of non-minority parents hoped the same for their children.

The survey also stated that visible-minority high school students reported higher grades in comparison to their non-minority peers.

But, Krahn stressed that the difference in educational interest and success between minority and non-minority groups was not necessarily a reflection on the apathy of the latter.

“[Non-minority youth] may have other opportunities. Their parents may be in business, maybe in agriculture, maybe in various other range of occupations, and there may be other opportunities for some of them to make a good career and making a good living without necessarily going [through post-secondary education].”