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Montreal, October 3, 2008 – For the fall 2008 session, 170,523 full-time students registered at Quebec’s universities, as well as 87,781 part-time students, for a total of 258,304 registrations. Following the 0.3% increase in 2007, the total number of registrations rose 0.5% this year. Full-time students increased slightly (0.8%) and part-time students fell slightly (-0.2%); these changes are mainly attributable to undergraduate students (-1.3%).

The strongest registration growth for fall 2008 occurred among graduate students. The number of people registered in graduate and postgraduate programs rose 1.8% and 2.9% respectively compared to the fall 2007 session. These increases may be explained by four main factors: 1) the universities’ introduction of various student retention measures, such as improved supervision of graduate students; 2) recruitment of international students; 3) introduction of new programs; 4) the growing interest in graduate studies in Québec.

Total undergraduate registrations for fall 2008 remained stable compared to last year. However, the number of new full-time undergraduates rose 2.0%, which bodes well for total registrations in the coming years.

Another significant observation already noted in recent years is the presence of women at university. This year, women represent 57.8% of the total student population: 56.4% are registered full-time and 60.4% are part-time. Women also account for 58.8% of undergraduate registrations, 56.3% of graduate students, and 47.7% of postgraduate students. In addition, 58.4% of the new full-time undergraduates registered are women.

These findings come from the universities’ preliminary registration statistics, excluding data from Télé-université which does not participate in data collection because its registration is a continuous process.

Note that the situation varies greatly from one university to another. For this reason, the statistics for individual universities must be consulted to identify the exact causes of these variations in student registrations. The breakdown by university of all the statistics is available on the CREPUQ Web site at: www.crepuq.qc.ca/spip.php?article102&lang=en

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For information:
Réjean Drolet or François Piette
Researchers
(514) 288-8524