Stats for students that stay in their university/college town after graduation?

[megadude]

I was just talking about this with a couple of people at work and we seem to have conflicting opinions based on what we've each heard, particularly for UWO (London) and Queens (Kingston). We were more interested in schools outside the major cities.

Of course, a lot would depend on whether the students are from the area of that school or are coming from far away and not used to living around those parts.

Not sure if this is something that's been covered in the Stats Can thread.

Does anyone know if there are studies on this topic? I found one for the US but not Canada.

I would also be interested in knowing how many kids from smaller places go to schools in major cities and then actually go back home.

[ericmacm]

I can't provide any raw statistics, but I am a student at the U of Windsor, I've been here for a few years now and I'm closing in on graduation soon so I think I can provide some relevant information.

From my own knowledge lot of people from outside of Windsor came to this university because it has a lower admission standard than some of the others in large cities. People who are originally from larger areas like the GTA, Calgary, Edmonton, or Ottawa (these are the areas that come up most when I ask people where they are from, if outside of Windsor CMA) usually tend to go back home and live with family afterward.

For those who live around Windsor (Chatham, Essex, Amherstburg, etc), it seems to be around half and half on who stays and who goes off to live elsewhere. Ultimately it comes down to employment prospects in Windsor for their degree and their relationship with their family.

Things are starting to change a little bit, though, the economy is on a bit of an upswing lately, there's new construction happening and a lot of the dilapidated areas are getting redone and gentrified, so I feel more people will start to stay here in a few years. We're supposedly getting a couple of new apartment buildings in the downtown core within the next couple of years as well so that could potentially be attractive given the cost of living here is pretty low.

[Dengler Avenue]

I have a friend from GTA who graduated from UW and ended up working in Waterloo.

[Capsicum]

Canada doesn't really have college towns in the similar style to the US, in the sense of towns totally dominated demographically by the university/college's presence, like Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Ithaca etc. or where the reason for the town being there was the school, and the thing keeping the town in business is the school.

Most Canadian "college towns" are just small cities/towns that happen to have a big school, enough so that students/professors/staff and people who work at the school make up a large demographic, but don't really totally dominate.

[Capsicum]

If we're talking about "home" being really far away, (international students rather than domestic students) most international students apparently want to use their study time in Canada to remain in Canada, but the majority end up leaving back to their home countries.

http://vancouversun.com/feature/how-...alls/chapter-4

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Capsicum

Canada doesn't really have college towns in the similar style to the US, in the sense of towns totally dominated demographically by the university/college's presence, like Berkeley, Ann Arbor, Ithaca etc. or where the reason for the town being there was the school, and the thing keeping the town in business is the school.

There are a few in the Maritimes. Examples are Wolfville, Antigonish, and Sackville NB.

Berkeley and Ann Arbor are both part of major metropolitan areas. I would not consider them true college towns.

[Dengler Avenue]

Also, from my experience, although neither Waterloo nor Guelph is complete dominated by university students, they're sort of near there. That a lot of buses run on reduced schedule from April to September somewhat reflects that. (For Waterloo, though, it will be different once Kitchener finally becomes a tech-hub.)

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Dengler Avenue

I have a friend from GTA who graduated from UW and ended up working in Waterloo.

Given the way the tech sector has been sucking up bodies, there must be hundreds, if not thousands, of people in K-W in the same circumstance.

Back in olden times, when I and other locals did our undergrad at UofW or WLU, the goal for the majority was to get the hell out.

[Docere]

It's pretty hard to know. Are there surveys of the university alumni to see where they're living after graduation? Maybe look at age cohorts in the census, how dramatic a drop is there in cohorts beyond the college-age demographic.

[kwoldtimer]

Originally Posted by Docere

It's pretty hard to know. Are there surveys of the university alumni to see where they're living after graduation? Maybe look at age cohorts in the census, how dramatic a drop is there in cohorts beyond the college-age demographic.

I did see something in the local news last year about K-W having, proportionately, the largest population of millenials in Canada (just ahead of Toronto). If so, that could suggest that a significant number of students have stayed on after graduation.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by megadude

I was just talking about this with a couple of people at work and we seem to have conflicting opinions based on what we've each heard, particularly for UWO (London) and Queens (Kingston). We were more interested in schools outside the major cities.

Of course, a lot would depend on whether the students are from the area of that school or are coming from far away and not used to living around those parts.

Not sure if this is something that's been covered in the Stats Can thread.

Does anyone know if there are studies on this topic? I found one for the US but not Canada.

I would also be interested in knowing how many kids from smaller places go to schools in major cities and then actually go back home.

When I lived in Kingston there was a news story about this very topic. I don't remember offhand what the exact number was for Queen's, but I remember it was extremely low (below 10%).

I knew a lot of Queen's students when I lived out there, and while there were some who wanted to stay in Kingston upon graduating, many had absolutely no interest in staying in a city that small upon graduating. Those who did want to stay tended to be from Eastern Ontario originally. I found that those who did stay tended to work in either medical or educational fields.

[SignalHillHiker]

In Newfoundland and Labrador, the retention rate for international students and graduates is acceptable. Almost all who are able to get a job are still here five years after graduation. We're updating our immigration categories right now to introduce new ones such as investors and entrepreneurs. That will help raise the rate even higher, especially since Memorial University of Newfoundland with the Genesis Centre is so very focused on students establishing actual businesses in St. John's.

• Video Link

Memorial University currently has the lowest tuition in Canada for Newfoundland and Labrador students (the province doesn't even give loans, it gives grants, to locals - so only the federal portion needs to be repaid). Tuition is higher for mainlanders and higher still for foreigners, but still exceptionally cheap compared to their home provinces or international student programs elsewhere.

Memorial University is world-renowned for folklore and cold ocean science. Students of any other discipline are probably only coming here for the cheap tuition. So it's a bit of a difficult audience to try to convince to settle here permanently. They want to come, get their degree affordably, and leave. But it has been working. Most mainland students are from Nova Scotia and Ontario. Most international students are from Spanish and Arabic-speaking countries.

We're managing to retain over half of them. Through my work, I manage to meet quite a lot of them and they fall into two categories - the ones who find Newfoundland interesting, including negatively, and leave as soon as able, and the sizable minority who fall completely in love and are heartbroken at the thought of having to live anywhere else. They're for sure in the 30-percent range, and anything we can do to keep them will be eagerly latched onto by them.

The government has committed to a half dozen or more immigration-related legislative changes or initiatives targeting international students and graduates.

One of the recent ones has been work placements to introduce these students and graduates to what is an exceptionally, suffocatingly nepotistic business environment (any job advertised here gets thousands upon thousands of applications from the diaspora living on the mainland and beyond; you don't have to be racist to want to give it to one of them. But it is hampering our population growth as a result).

Newfoundland and Labrador announces work placements for international students and graduates

Two new pilot programs have been launched for international students and graduates in Newfoundland and Labrador.

The Student Internship Pilot Program and My First Job in Newfoundland and Labrador Pilot Program will help foreign students in the province secure suitable employment.

The Government of Newfoundland and Labrador is dedicating more than $392,000 in funding for both programs.

The Student Internship Pilot Program is designed to connect full-time international students in a recognized post-secondary institution with a small or medium-sized business for a 12-week internship in an occupation that aligns with their career path.

The My First Job in Newfoundland and Labrador Pilot Program is designed to link international graduates from Memorial University or College of the North Atlantic with a small or medium-sized business for a 16-week job placement in their field of study.

The new pilot programs follow recommendations presented in a parliamentary report on improving immigration and employment prospects for international students in Atlantic Canada.

Al Hawkins, Newfoundland and Labrador’s Minster of Advanced Education, Skills and Labour said the goal of the pilot programs is to encourage international students and graduates to build their careers in the province.

“International students and graduates who develop professional connections are more likely to stay here, enhancing the social vibrancy of our province and supporting economic growth,” he said. “We encourage the business community to avail of this opportunity to build our community, and to employ these skilled and talented individuals.”

The two programs are part of a broader initiative by the provincial government to retain international students in order to reach its goal of welcoming nearly 1,700 new immigrants to Newfoundland and Labrador annually by 2022.

http://www.canadastudynews.com/2017/...and-graduates/

Immigration is already up 40% since 2012. Fingers crossed we hit the 1,700 goal.

And we've started marketing ourselves more aggressively - pointing out we're the happiest and least-stressed province in Canada, we have statistically the greatest sense of belonging to our local communities and province, etc. And things like this, certainly, will be highlighted in future immigration campaigns:

St. John's Canada's most open city, populism poll suggests

At a time in world history marked by a global trend towards slamming doors on immigration in the face of mounting economic insecurity, new polling by The Canadian Press/Ekos Politics suggests St. John's is Canada's most "open" city, where populist politics — including support for restrictions on newcomers and resistance to free trade and globalization — are least likely to thrive.

Populism is the term often used to describe the bursts of anti-elite support that catapulted outsider Donald Trump into the White House and fuelled Britain's stunning referendum results to leave the European Union.

...

The city of about 109,000 people, its famous colourful clapboard buildings nestled around a busy harbour, is increasingly diverse but still overwhelmingly white. And its economic engine has sputtered since the offshore oil bonanza that built luxury homes and opened swank restaurants ended when prices crashed three years ago.

That, according to conventional wisdom, is supposed to make it fertile ground for the sort of attitudes believed to underpin the 21st-century populist forces that are in play around the world.

And yet St. John's — along with Victoria, B.C., another fairly white seaside destination — tops the ranks of Canada's most open cities, Graves said. At the other end of the spectrum, the surveys suggest, are Oshawa, Ont., and Calgary, where "closed" attitudes and tepid support for immigration are spurred by a persistent and deepening fear of a worsening economy.

"Maybe it's the ocean having kind of a more cosmopolitan influence on the outlook of people," Graves said. "A lot of people come through. It's a big port."

http://www.thetelegram.com/news/regi...ggests-181655/

[megadude]

I went to Windsor and York. When I was at Windsor, I stayed on campus rez the whole time, so hardly knew any locals. The people I associated with were about 90% from well outside Windsor (mostly GTA), and 10% from nearby Chatham, Leamington, Amherstburg etc.

Based on my visits within the first five years after I left, and based on Facebook profiles, the vast majority who stayed were from within the area, which is what you would expect, like the Kingston example above.

The three from quite a distance away that did stay, were from Markham, Montreal and Brantford (for a girl whom he married soon after grad).

The GTA people, like myself, moved back at a 95%+ rate. I think this is mainly due to being used to bigger city life. Plus if you're a minority, anywhere outside GTA is not going to have that same level of diversity, which is important to most minorities.

As well, I think GTA people (and young people in general) go back home expecting their shiny new degree is going to land them some fancy job at the big investment or marketing firm, or medical research lab, or get their foot in the door at city hall or Queens Park. Then reality hits you. It's not that simple. Unless you're at the top of your class, despite the abundance of industries, you're going to find there's a lot of competition for those ideal job. Yes you'll get a job, but it'll be much lower down than what you expected.

As for the rest of the province, the people I knew from outside the GTHA did not end up settling back home in their smaller communities due to getting jobs elsewhere. Yes, a tonne ended up in GTA and a couple in Hamilton, but I knew a handful who ended up in places like Thunder Bay (music teacher), Guelph (logistics mgmt), Walkerton (some science thing related to that bad water issue!) and Dubai.

I have no anecdotal evidence from my time at York since everyone I befriended was from no farther than Bowmanville or Hamilton. I didn't stay on rez so that would explain a lot.

As for my brother, he went to Brock in St. Catharines and has stayed ever since due to a girl, the more laid back lifestyle, and affordable rent compared to back home.

[megadude]

I like how aggressive and innovative NL is being in this regard. My Indian co-worker went to UNB and worked in Fredericton for a while at Bell. Then an opportunity came up in St. John's for Bell that would also take him once a week to Labrador. So he took it, eager to expand his horizons in the country he planned on calling home.

Admittedly, he didn't want to spend the rest of his life out east, but he was willing to spend a few years in NL or NB. Then he met an Indian girl and followed her to Kingston when she got a job offer there. He was satisfied being in Kingston, especially since he again got an IT job there, but they broke up and since he had no school friends or family nearby, he started looking around again and ended up in TO.

Also, I worked with a guy in Brampton who hailed from NS. He went to Memorial. And I know some from Brampton who went to Memorial. Didn't realize it was such a common thing till you mentioned it.

[suburbanite]

Waterloo's graduate retention rate has almost certainly fallen since the collapse of Blackberry. There's still tech companies in the area that hire a bunch of graduates, but not in the volume or certainty that RIM did circa 2009. It used to almost be a guaranteed job after graduating from UW engineering.

I started at Laurier/UW in 2011, right at the tipping point. I vividly remember starting school and Blackberry was still the biggest player by far. Everyone was collecting BBM pins during frosh week. Then there were the two big BBM outages during the year, and the release of SMS on the iphone. I swear by the end of the year the split flipped from 80% blackberry and 20% iphones to 80% iphones and the rest on Android. I've never seen a market reverse so quickly.

By the time I graduated, Blackberry was a shell of its former self, and the brain drain to Silicon Valley was real. Lots of classmates working for Nvidia, Oracle, Amazon, etc, in California. The other half of my cohort was business grads from Laurier who immediately left for Toronto. There's Manulife and Sunlife in Waterloo, but it's mostly back office stuff. The sexy jobs are still Downtown. I can estimate that less than 5% of the people I knew stuck around.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by megadude

The GTA people, like myself, moved back at a 95%+ rate. I think this is mainly due to being used to bigger city life. Plus if you're a minority, anywhere outside GTA is not going to have that same level of diversity, which is important to most minorities.

As well, I think GTA people (and young people in general) go back home expecting their shiny new degree is going to land them some fancy job at the big investment or marketing firm, or medical research lab, or get their foot in the door at city hall or Queens Park. Then reality hits you. It's not that simple. Unless you're at the top of your class, despite the abundance of industries, you're going to find there's a lot of competition for those ideal job. Yes you'll get a job, but it'll be much lower down than what you expected.

A number of the Queens students I knew were either international students or from the GTA (I dated one of each during my years there). Very anecdotal, but the international student I knew came from a very large city overseas and she was incredibly bored in Kingston, and was determined to move to one of Toronto, Vancouver, Ottawa or Montreal upon graduation. She struggled a lot with Kingston's size, and being a visible minority in an overwhelmingly white, git-r-done city was difficult for her.

[jonny24]

I think there'd be a pretty big difference between colleges and universities- it seems people go to farther-away cities for university than they do for college. When I was at Conestoga people would ask me what high school I went to, fully expecting me to answer with one of the schools in KW.

[manny_santos]

Originally Posted by jonny24

I think there'd be a pretty big difference between colleges and universities- it seems people go to farther-away cities for university than they do for college. When I was at Conestoga people would ask me what high school I went to, fully expecting me to answer with one of the schools in KW.

At Fanshawe College most of the students I knew were either from London or elsewhere in SW Ontario. There were a small number from Toronto, and a few international students - the business program there got quite a few students from India.

What did happen at Fanshawe after graduating is that almost everyone in my program who was from London, left London within a year, myself included, because of a lack of job opportunities in the region at that time. Some went to Alberta as that area was booming at the time, others ended up in the GTA. I know of exactly one student from my program who returned to London after the economy picked back up a few years later. I know others from the London area who went through the same program at Fanshawe in later cohorts, and many of them also left London after graduating due to lack of job opportunities locally.