Using a mixed-methods research design, the project gathers evidence from two groups: current postsecondary students who are not using student financial assistance and youth aged 18 to 30 who are not currently enrolled in postsecondary education. Surveys provide national-level insight into awareness, perceptions, and barriers, while in-depth interviews explore how financial, administrative, informational, and personal factors shape decision-making.

By centring the lived experiences of equity-deserving populations, the project aims to generate actionable evidence to inform policy improvements to make SFA more accessible, inclusive, and responsive to the needs of diverse learners across Canada.

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Children who meet CLB eligibility criteria are provided an initial payment of $500 into their registered education savings plan (RESP), as well as an additional $100 for each year they are eligible up to age 15 (for a maximum allocation of $2,000). Children in care (i.e., who have a public caregiver who receives an allowance under the Children’s Special Allowance Act) are also eligible for the CLB regardless of their household income.

SRDC analyzed newly available data to examine CLB allocation and how it promotes higher education savings, with a special focus on variation by birth cohort and household income, as well as among urban and rural Canadians. This report answers three research questions:

• What is the allocation of CLB funds to families by birth cohort and household income?
• What can current data tell us about the catalytic impact of the CLB on education savings, broken down by birth cohort and household income?
• What are the specific barriers to accessing the CLB among rural Canadians?

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SRDC undertook earlier work to define more clearly what non‐completion comprises and analyze its consequences for outcomes such as labour market earnings. This project continues this line of research by developing and locating the data to populate a cost-benefit analysis framework that monetizes the net costs of non-completion to students, institutions, governments, and society and compares them to those attributable to completion of credentials by comparable individuals. A key intention is to estimate “savings” that might be generated from interventions that can increase postsecondary completion. The potential for savings could justify the testing of different potential interventions. This project is in its final stage, completing a wide-ranging cost-benefit analysis of non-completion.

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The three questions are:

• What is the allocation of CLB funds to families by birth cohort and household income?
• What can current data tell us about the catalytic impact of the CLB on education savings, broken down by birth cohort and household income?
• What are the specific barriers to accessing the CLB among rural Canadians?

SRDC is analyzing data from Statistics Canada including the Survey of Approaches to Educational Planning, Canada Education Savings Program files linked to the 2016 Census and a potential second linkage focused on the Longitudinal Administrative Database.

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• Explore Your Horizons provides information about academic and career options (including labour market trends, costs, and financing of PSE), skills development, and support for career exploration and planning. Delivered over three years through workshops, a magazine, and a members-only Web site, Explore Your Horizons is offered in Manitoba and New Brunswick to students in all income groups.
• Learning Accounts provides an early promise of substantial financial support to students provided they are accepted into a recognized PSE program. Learning Accounts is offered to students in New Brunswick from families with incomes at or below the provincial median.

The intent of Future to Discover is to test the effectiveness of these interventions in improving access to PSE, particularly among youth who are disadvantaged by family income or educational background, both individually and in combination.

Methodology

Future to Discover was developed by the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation, in partnership with the provincial governments of Manitoba and New Brunswick. Future to Discover offices were set up in each province to deliver the interventions. The Social Research and Demonstration Corporation (SRDC) is conducting the evaluation of the interventions.

The research design for Future to Discover is ambitious and complex. Similar to many other SRDC projects, Future to Discover is a social experiment, in which student volunteers are randomly assigned to program groups that receives one or both of the interventions, or to a comparison group. Because program and comparison groups are similar in all other respects, differences in students’ experiences can be attributed to the impact of the interventions.

Several different program and comparison groups were needed to test the effectiveness of the interventions (alone and in combination) separately for the two provinces, for two linguistic groups (in New Brunswick), and among students with higher or lower levels of family income and/or parental education. To secure a sufficient sample for analysis, students were recruited in two cohorts over successive years in New Brunswick.

Over 5,400 students were initially recruited to the project: 1,042 students in Manitoba, and 4,382 in New Brunswick, with the latter equally split between the Francophone and Anglophone education sectors. Assigned to receive Explore Your Horizons were 1,747 students (1,172 in New Brunswick and 575 in Manitoba); 1,097 lower-income students in New Brunswick were assigned to receive Learning Accounts.

For all these students, the main impact of interest is enrolment in any form of PSE (apprenticeships, private vocational institutions, university, or college), and completion of their first year of studies. Other outcomes of interest include students’ knowledge and attitudes towards PSE, and related behaviours, such as time spent on homework and graduating high school. Future to Discover also involves an implementation evaluation and a cost-benefit analysis.

Status

Future to Discover was launched in 2004, and most participating students have graduated from high school. The delivery of Explore Your Horizons and Learning Accounts has been completed. In 2007, SRDC published Future to Discover Pilot Project: Early Implementation Report which documented the planning and first year of implementation of the pilot project. A second report entitled, Future to Discover: Interim Impacts Report, was published in November 2009. The second report evaluated the implementation of Explore Your Horizons and Learning Accounts, and presented findings on early outcomes. The Future to Discover: Post-secondary Impacts Report presents impacts on students’ enrolment in PSE and other post-secondary activities. It includes a cost-benefit analysis, and was published in November 2012. The latest results for New Brunswick were published in October 2019.

Funding

The Future to Discover pilot project was funded by the Canada Millennium Scholarship Foundation. Funding is continuing under an agreement with the New Brunswick Department of Education and Early Childhood Development.

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These barriers include uncertainty about career options, misconceptions about PSE, and limited financial resources.

The report “Health and Criminal Justice Outcomes of Furthering Education” provides an update on the previous estimates of the impact of FTD on educational and employment outcomes, and explores how this study can contribute to our understanding of the relationship between education, health, and criminal justice.

We encourage you to download this report and SRDC’s previous FTD reports to learn more about key findings.

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SRDC will evaluate the impacts of the APOP website and its features relative to existing resources used by high schools against key outcomes of interest to the province such as PSE application rates, PSE offers received, and PSE enrollment rates using existing administrative data collected by the province to guide the province on the optimal longer-term strategy for the delivery of the program.

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