There are a lot of things “everybody knows” about students these days.  Everybody knows students these days think of their education in far more utilitarian terms than they used to, caring more about their jobs outcomes and less about the joy of learning.  Everybody knows it’s easier to get an A than it used to be.  And everybody knows students are working more because education is way more expensive. 

Unfortunately, all of this is demonstrable twaddle.  As per yesterday, we can examine these questions by looking at longitudinal data from the Canadian Undergraduate Survey Consortium.

Let’s start with the issue of why students choose to attend universities.  It is certainly true students, if asked about their motives for attending, do tend to focus on employment-related themes.  However, this is nothing new: this concern has long been the case among students.   Yes, students are more likely than they were 15 years ago to say they go to university to get a good job (86% vs. 80%), but they are also more likely to say they are going because they want to increase their knowledge in a particular academic field.  The rank order of reasons hasn’t changed: only the frequency with which students cite them.

Figure 1: % of first-year students indicating different rationales for attending university, 2001 vs 2013

Figure 2 shows the change in the distribution of grades students report receiving during their first year (technically the question, posed mid-way through the winter term, asks what students think their average for the year will be).  It turns out the curve is very similar: yes, students are slightly more likely to report getting As, but they are also slightly more likely to report getting Cs.

Figure 2: First year students’ average reported grades, 2001 vs 2016

Finally, there is the issue of students working.  As Figure 3 shows, it turns out that the percentage of first-year students indicating that they have a job has fallen from 42% to 34%, while the average number of hours worked among those who do work has fallen from around 16 hours per week to 14 hours per week.  The drop in the employment rate appears to be secular rather than cyclical, while the drop in hours does seem to have some cyclical component (i.e. a big drop between 2007 and 2010).

Figure 3: First-Year Students’ Employment Rates and Average Hours of Work, 2001-2016

We can’t tell exactly what’s causing the drop in employment rates and hours or what the effects are because the survey of first-year students is lighter on financial data than its companion surveys are.  But there are three obvious reasons why students might be working less than fifteen years ago.  The first is that a significant number students in 2016 will have had the benefit of 18 years worth of Canada Education Savings Grants whereas the 2001 cohort would only have had three years’ worth.  The second is that student aid is significantly more generous to first-year students than it was in 2001 (mostly due to the relaxation of income criteria in 2004 and 2006).  Finally, institutions themselves are giving away a lot more money.  Back in 2001, 39% of incoming students said they received a scholarship or other financial award from their institution.  By 2016, that number had increased to 58%.

Now, let’s see how many journalists complain about one of these things “everybody knows” about over the next week or two.