ABSTRACT
In North America, during the twentieth century, higher education grew dr amatically in both Canada and the United States. Canada, with a population of 36 million people, now has a higher education system of more than 300 institutions. The United States, with a population of 320 million people, has more than 4,000 higher education institutions. Both systems have a good deal of institutional diversity ranging from small colleges to large researchintensive doctoral-granting universities. The growth in these systems in part was driven by the rise of knowledge-based economies in which a college education has come to be seen as a necessity for those who aspire to professional careers (Grubb and Lazerson 2004). Consequently, demand for higher education throughout North America is relatively high. Canada and the United States both enjoy relatively high postsecondary enrolments. Currently, 65 per cent of all US high-school graduates attend college (Bureau of Labor Statistics 2015), with about 7.3 million attending two-year community colleges and an estimated 13.7 million attending four-year institutions (National Center for Educational Statistics 2015). In Canada, the rate of attendance is also above 60 per cent (Davies and Hammack 2005) with approximately two-thirds of young adults holding a higher education qualification (OECD 2009, 2014).
