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First-year students good for economy

Sudbury business people are starting to realize post-secondary students are good for the economy. Some hope to develop downtown Sudbury into a student village.
Sudbury business people are starting to realize post-secondary students are good for the economy. Some hope to develop downtown Sudbury into a student village.

A new report released by the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Durham College shows first-year college and university students are a powerful and highly influential group to be reckoned with.

According to the First InSight report which looks at the attitudes and behaviours of first-year college and university students, their influence helps drive social and economic spending.

On average, college- and university-bound students have at least one credit card, and 40 per cent report carrying debt on these cards. These students spend about $500 per month on fast food and clothes.

The report also show these students have a huge influence on their parents? spending habits as well.

?They are the first generation that has been marketed to their entire lives and they?re not afraid to flex a little influential muscle when it comes to their post-secondary education,? says Sharon Loverock, manager of Research Services at the University of Ontario Institute of Technology in Oshawa.

The report is aimed at helping faculty understand the changing perspective of these students in order to help them
succeed.

Dubbed the ?double cohort? generation, the majority of these students were born in 1984 or 1985, and they make up part of the 1.7 million students (five per cent of the nation?s population) who are enrolled in courses leading to degrees, diplomas or certificates at colleges and universities throughout Canada.

There are more students attending post-secondary institutions than there are farmers, fishers, miners, forestry workers, utility workers, oil and gas workers and construction workers combined.

Since this group of students was five or six years old (1990-1991), the average undergraduate tuition jumped by 76
per cent or six per cent per year in inflation-adjusted dollars.

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