University enrolment is going up, average national entering grades are going up, and tuition’s going up. It’s a recipe for disaster for disadvantaged high school students.

So says a new study by the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, The Price of Knowledge 2004, a compilation of research that looks at who’s getting into post-secondary education in Canada and what it’s costing them.

The study highlights the fact that enrolment has increased by 20 per cent in the past five years, average tuition has jumped to $4,025, and students entering universities in Canada have around an 84 per cent average-a ten per cent leap since 1974.

These figures make it clear why it’s an uphill battle for youth from low-income families to get post-secondary education, an education which is essential in what Sean Junor, the author of the report, calls a “knowledge-based economy.”

“If you don’t have a post-secondary education you’re left out of the job merry-go-round,” he said.

Lowering costs associated with attending university or college is the obvious choice, but the study stresses that academic and information barriers are just as tough for low-income youth.

“It isn’t necessarily that they have access to resources, they simply don’t believe that the benefits meet the costs,” said Junor. The solution is to educate students, he said, about how investment in education can have payoffs in increased future earnings.

As for the academic barrier, students need support early on in their schooling, support which points them in the direction of further education from day one. “What you want is people on the post-secondary pathway and [to] get that academic barrier out of the way earlier,” said Junor.

Drawing the focus away from financial obstacles does not sit well with Mike Conlon, the director of research for the Canadian Federation of Students.

“While they acknowledge low-income students are not getting into the system, they say that it’s because there’s not enough information,” said Conlon. “[This] sends the message to university administrators that tuition fees are not the problem.”

The issue is not that fees are not a problem, said Junor, but that wider issues need to be addressed. “There are strong barriers that are not necessarily financial…we’re trying to expand discussion beyond tuition and fees discussion.”

The study does say that debt has increased 205 per cent between 1982 and 2000, yet Junor says that debt has stabilized in the last seven years. The study also criticizes the decline in need-based grants and loans and the increase in financial assistance through taxes. In the last 14 years, need-based student assistance has dropped from 65 per cent to 40 per cent.

“Governments have made it harder for students to get financial assistance and this isn’t necessarily a good sign,” said Junor.

More needs to be done to make sure low-income people don’t get left behind, he said. The federal government has guaranteed $1500 per low-income student, which is a good start but only the beginning.

The Price of Knowledge is primarily intended to be an aid to policy makers. Information about education in the past has been scant or faulty, said Joseph Berger, a spokesman for the Millennium Scholarship Foundation. The study aims to fill that gap.

“We wanted to make a comprehensive policy tool…to improve delivery of our own scholarship program,” said Berger. “Our main intention is to inform the discussion.”

The report is a second edition. The original was released in 2002.