Postsecondary education in Canada: Returns to university, college and trades education

By international standards, the level of educational attainment in Canada is exceptionally high, with the proportion of adult Canadians holding postsecondary educational certificates being more than twice the OECD average. This remarkable ranking is primarily the result of high participation in non-university postsecondary educational sectors: colleges, trades institutions, and other vocational educators. While the non-university postsecondary education (PSE) sector is clearly important in terms of both the quantity and the qualitative nature of human capital it produces, it has received very little attention in the academic literature, which has tended to focus on the outcomes of university graduates. This paper uses Census data from 1980 to 2000 to examine the evolution of the earnings premia to university, college, and trades education over a 20-year period of rapid economic change. Examining this evolution is a prerequisite to understanding the behaviour of participation in the various postsecondary education streams and to the appropriate conduct of educational and labour market policy.