David Zarifa

Earnings and employment outcomes for male and female postsecondary graduates of coop and non‐coop programmes

New postsecondary graduates seeking entry into the Canadian workforce may experience more favourable labour market outcomes if they augment their education with job‐related training. Employers, looking for new ways of differentiating among equally credentialed prospects, may prefer job candidates with practical training. These new realities have led to a steady increase in the availability and popularity of cooperative education programmes in Canadian colleges and universities. Few existing studies, however, have sought to examine whether or not earnings premiums or employment advantages exist for coop graduates. This paper compares the earnings and employment outcomes of postsecondary graduates with coop credentials to those with traditional, non‐coop credentials. Even once controlling for a number of factors, coop programmes provide the greatest advantage at the university level, particularly among male graduates. In terms of employment status, college males and university females experienced the greatest advantages to attending coop programmes.

What’s Taking You So Long? Examining the Effects of Social Class on Completing a Bachelor’s Degree in Four Years:

Despite improved access in expanded postsecondary systems, the great majority of bachelor’s degree graduates are taking considerably longer than the allotted four years to complete their four-year degrees. Taking longer to finish one’s BA has become so pervasive in the United States that it has become the norm for official statistics released by the Department of Education to report graduation rates across a six-year window. While higher education scholars have increasingly explored how social class impacts college dropout, attrition, and completion, they have yet to examine the role social class plays in completing a four-year bachelor’s degree on time. In this paper, we draw on the most recent cohort of the Baccalaureate and Beyond Longitudinal Survey (2008–2009) to examine who completes their bachelor’s degrees on time. Our results indicate that despite controlling for academic performance, educational behaviors, program characteristics, and institutional characteristics, graduates from lower socioeconomic backgrounds do experience difficulties completing their degrees on time. Moreover, our results also reveal that the nature of these relationships vary for traditional and nontraditional students. Our findings highlight another important, albeit less obvious, way where inequality is maintained in expanded postsecondary systems.