The Youth in Transition Survey is used to follow the postsecondary education (PSE) pathways and outcomes of Canadian youth over the mid 2000s. Separate analyses are done for students who started at community colleges and those who started at four year universities. First program outcomes are reported, showing that significant numbers of students leave their first programs but remain in PSE by switching to other programs, institutions, or levels. Multinomial regression is used to estimate the correlates of students' first program switching and leaving decisions. Five year graduation rates are calculated to show the importance of different pathways (across programs, institutions, and levels) to earning a PSE credential; in the aggregate and for subgroups of students. Differences between institution specific and system wide measures of persistence, PSE leaving, and graduation rates are shown throughout.

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The children of Canadian immigrants from some source regions, Asia, Africa and China in particular, attend university at extraordinarily high rates. Most others participate at lower rates, but still compare favourably with nonimmigrant Canadians. In this paper, the Youth in Transition Survey is used to analyse the role of various background factors on these outcomes, including parental education, family income, parental expectations, high school grades and PISA test scores. To some degree, the children of immigrants go to a university because they have higher levels of the background attributes associated with university attendance, parental education in particular. But by allowing these effects to vary by immigrant group, this research finds that the high immigrant university participation rates are largely driven by those possessing Bunfavourable^characteristics (low levels of parental education in particular) attending university in spite of these apparent disadvantages.

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