College beats university

StatCan study suggests college degrees earn a higher pay

 By LINA CHUNG

Kaely Blanche would not be an event coordinator with Vancouver Film School without the co-op work experience she gained while doing her business degree at Langara College.

“We are always interested in the way art can sneak into places where it may not seem to be,” Reed said.

Or “where it may not be welcome,” Jickling said.

Artist Elizabeth Milton helped host the event, making it the latest in a Visiting Artists series by Langara’s Fine Arts department.

Milton, a fine arts instructor at Langara, believes that exposing students to elaborate, interactive art that manifests in unusual ways is beneficial.

“It’s really exciting for students to be exposed to practices that are participatory, are performative,” Milton said. “And that also show that idea of the radicalism of play and that interrogate various institutional structures but in a way that is accessible and playful.”

Now that Vancouver has gotten a taste for participatory art in schools, the reproducibility of the project, and not just its products, could essentially be replicated, but Jickling is confident they’ve created something quite unique.

“The message we’ve developed is kind of idiosyncratic and particular... I don’t think it’s replicable” Jickling said.

“My resume would have been passed over,” Blanche said, since she only had restaurant server work experience previous to getting co-op work experience in event coordination for Langara.

A recent Statistics Canada study found that two years after graduation, people with college bachelor degrees made on average 12 per cent more than people with university bachelor degrees. The study found that the major reason was because college degree participants chose higher paying fields such as business.

Marc Frenette, the study’s author, said that although the wage gap is a significant finding, college degree graduates are only a small percentage, of roughly four per cent, of total university degree graduates.

“If bachelor degree programs were offered in all community colleges across Canada, would the findings still hold?” said Frenette.

“It’s not clear. This could be a very select group of colleges and types of students taking those programs.”

Don Hill, chair of Langara’s business management program, is not surprised by the wage differential because colleges, in general, are more applied than universities.

“We tend to give [students] more of an education that is business ready,” Hill said.

Rochelle Grayson, chair of Langara’s marketing management program, said she is consistently reading job descriptions that are posted online.

“That’s what drives my curriculum,” Grayson said.

Although Blanche attended Langara with the intention to transfer to UBC’s business program, she changed her mind and decided to stay. “I just had such a great connection with the teachers and I was just enjoying the small classes and the entire school,” Blanche said.

ANNUAL EARNINGS: TWO YEARS AFTER GRADUATION

» $55, 187

Annual earnings of college bachelor's degree holders.

» $49, 281

Annual earnings of university bachelor's degree holders.

» $39, 935

Annual earnings of certificate holders.

» $38, 726

Annual earnings of diploma holders.

SOURCE: STATISTICS CANADA