• About BCCAT: Fulfilling Our Mandate
• Collaborating with BC Post-Secondary Partners
• Understanding Student Mobility
  • Traditional Transfer Students
  • Following a Cohort of Eligible Transfer Students
  • Movement of Students from Research-Intensive Universities to Other Institutions
  • Why Do We Want to Know More About All Movers? How Can We Do This?
  • Is the Transfer Route as Efficient as the High School Entry Route to Degree Completion at a BC Research University?
• Facilitating Admissions, Transfer, and Articulation
• Supporting Students' Education Planning
• Advancing Inter-Provincial Mobility
• Appendices

• Annual Review 2010-11 PDF

Annual Review Home

 

Movement of Students from Research-Intensive Universities to Other Institutions

The STP information provided in Figure 1 shows that students are indeed moving in all directions. While thousands of students switched to an RIU between 2007-08 and 2008-09, 6,100 moved from RIU's to other public post-secondary institutions in BC (4,800 to colleges, TIU's, and institutes and 1,300 to other RIU's). In 2010-11, BCCAT conducted a study analyzing STP data to learn more about the mobility patterns of students by answering such questions as where are they going, what programs are they enrolling in, what program areas are they moving from and to, and how many complete a credential at an RIU before enrolling elsewhere. The study was conducted under the auspices of the STP's Post-Secondary Student Mobility Sub-Committee and the report was prepared by Joanne Heslop, Manager of the STP. The results of the study show that most students who left an RIU to attend elsewhere had not yet completed a university credential before leaving. The primary destinations of these movers were BC colleges, as well as BCIT and UBC. Key findings include:

• The top three destinations for movers were BCIT, UBC, and Langara. TRU-OL, Douglas, Camosun, and Kwantlen were the next four most popular destinations.
• The top program destinations for movers were Arts and Sciences; Arts and Sciences were also the top program areas that RIU movers departed from in 2007-08. About one third of all students remained in the same program at the destination institution.
• About one quarter of RIU movers completed a credential before moving to another institution, and institutes (primarily BCIT) were the main destination for RIU credential completers.

The study also tracked a cohort of 20,422 students new to RIUs in 2002-03 up to 2009-10 to assess their mobility, registration, and credential completion patterns. Roughly two-thirds of the cohort (12,844) remained at the RIU for the duration of their studies, and among those who left to attend elsewhere (7,578), just over one-third (2,729) returned to the same RIU. Figure 4 provides a summary of three different paths followed by this cohort and their credential completion numbers. Students who remained at the RIU for the duration of their studies attained the lowest credential completion rate of the three groups (66%), but the highest proportion of bachelor degree completions (90%).

Figure 4: Registration and Completion Status of 2002/03 New to RIU Students (N=20,422) by 2009/10