Gabriel Miller
President and CEO,
Universities Canada
Deborah Morrison
Director of Publications,
Universities Canada
Your student can find, compare, and rank prospective universities, programs, and scholarships in one convenient place, then share and save the results.
Making decisions about post-secondary education can be overwhelming. There are hundreds of institutions across Canada offering thousands of programs. Trying to keep it all straight is tough.
The good news is that you and your student don’t have to do it alone. Universities Canada created universitystudy.ca to help access and navigate all that information plus save, share, and rank it — all in one spot. The site has a database of 97 Canadian public universities and their programs. Search filters help customize results to find and compare the programs you want.
Another database aggregates over 1000 scholarships and bursaries, saving hours of searching countless websites, or, worse, missing out on available money. A third section of the website contains posts written by experts (often students themselves) with tips on the application process, campus life, and financial aid.
Gabriel Miller is the President and CEO of Universities Canada and Deborah Morrison is its Director of Publications. We sat down with them to learn more about universitystudy.ca.
Post-secondary education is more important than it’s ever been. We’re now in an age where the ability to learn is essential. It’s a lifelong skill, and that’s what post-secondary is all about. It’s teaching you how to learn.
Is post-secondary education still important?
Deborah Morrison: I would say post-secondary education is more important than it’s ever been. We’re now in an age where the ability to learn is essential. It’s a lifelong skill and that’s what post-secondary is all about. It’s teaching you how to learn. No matter what your discipline is, you’re going to be building skills that will equip you for the rest of your life to be able to tackle any kind of new critical thinking topic, or even just to orient yourself to a new kind of work environment or work role. It’s a base of education that really serves individuals well, no matter what their pursuit, whether it’s a creative one, a scientific one, or a business one.
How is the application process different than it used to be?
Gabriel Miller: Students are feeling more pressure than ever before to make the choices that’ll end up benefiting them the most in the future. And today’s students are confronted with a lot more information to navigate, being plugged into social media, which can be difficult. Students are living in a sea of information, and they’re looking for ways to make sense of it and to find their way to the right choices for them. And that, I think, was the real inspiration behind universitystudy.ca.
Why is a resource like this important?
GM: Every student, whether they’re in Canada or another part of the world and interested in studying in Canada, can benefit from a one-stop location to get information, compare their options, and help them make an informed choice.
I also think it’s an especially important tool for first-generation university students, who oftentimes don’t have the same resources or relationships to help guide them through this process. Knowing that there’s this tool as a reliable friend where they can turn for information as they’re navigating their way to a university is really valuable. People do their best, but having been through these grants, knowing other people who attended university and people who work in university, that’s an advantage — and even those folks still need help navigating the system. But when you’re the first in your family to go to post-secondary school, having an extra helping hand is particularly important.
Who can use and benefit from the tools on universitystudy.ca?
DM: It’s targeted mostly to young people. Canadian high school students would be a primary audience, but it could also just be somebody who’s been out of school and working, and who decided to further their education. We know that students typically don’t make these decisions alone. We know there are some reluctant teenagers who may need a little support from parents. We’re also talking to guidance school counsellors to let them know of universitystudy.ca’s availability. There’s information on the website that anyone can access and benefit from.
Learn more at universitystudy.ca.
