Is the pursuit of higher education taking a toll?

Wed, March 5, 2008

By RANDY RICHMOND, SUN MEDIA AND NEWS SERVICES

Students attend an engineering class yesterday at the University of Western Ontario. (Morris Lamont, Sun Media)

Your kids may not be smarter than you, but chances are they have more education, or will.

In London, as in the rest of Ontario, more people aged 25 to 34 have university degrees than those over 55.

According to statistics from the 2006 Census released yesterday, 28 per cent of young Londoners have a university degree and 29 per cent have a college degree.

Their parents’ generation, those 55 to 65, just didn’t make the grade in comparison.

In that age group, 19 per cent had degrees and 20 per cent had college diplomas.

“The gain in educational achievement is in the 25- to 34-year-old group,” said Yvan Clermont, assistant director for the Centre for Education Statistics for Statistics Canada.

Overall in Canada, the number of university graduates has jumped 24 per cent since 2001.

About 29 per cent of young adults between 25 and 34 years old had a university degree in 2006 — far ahead of the 18 per cent of adults aged 55 to 64.

College graduates also were higher with 23 per cent of young adults holding a college diploma, compared with 16 per cent of the older age group.

What’s unclear is whether accumulating more degrees, putting off full-time employment and delaying marriage, children and mortgages is making this generation any happier, let alone more successful.

Sociologists and some parents wonder whether the dogged pursuit of education by Canada’s young people is taking its toll on traditional maturation.

“People put off family formation, live at home longer and the question becomes ‘Does that mean that they’re not yet adults?’ ” asks Penny Milton, chief executive officer of the Canadian Education Association.

“There is a new phase of development going on that we might call pre-adulthood.”

Milton says this doesn’t necessarily mean young Canadians aren’t as happy or successful as their parents.

Young people also are opting against pursuing the trade degrees that defined their parents’ generation.

In Canada, only 10 per cent of people between 25 and 34 years old had trade certificates, compared with 13 per cent of 55 to 64 year olds, Statistics Canada said.

In London, only six per cent of people aged 25 to 34 had a trade certificate or apprenticeship.

Eleven per cent of those in the 55 to 64 age group had a trade certificate or apprenticeship.

Source: The London Free Press