Postsecondary enrolments, by field of study, registration status, program type, credential type and gender^{1, 2, 3, 4, 5}

All counts are randomly rounded to a multiple of 3 using the following procedure: counts which are already a multiple of 3 are not adjusted; counts one greater than a multiple of 3 are adjusted to the next lowest multiple of 3 with a probability of two-thirds and to the next highest multiple of 3 with a probability of one-third. The probabilities are reversed for counts that are one less than a multiple of 3.

The data are subject to revision.

Enrolments are based on students enrolled in the postsecondary institutions at the time of the fall snapshot date, that is, a single date chosen by the institution which falls from September 30th to December 1st. Therefore students who are not enrolled during this time period are excluded and enrolment totals do not represent a full academic year. This has a greater impact on colleges as they have a continuous intake of students and shorter programs. It should also be noted, enrolments are based on program counts and not student counts. If a student is enrolled in more than one program as of the snapshot date, then all of their programs are included in the count.

Up to 2008, the count excludes students enrolled in programs related to pre-employment, apprenticeship, basic training or skills upgrading, second language training, job readiness or orientation programs. However, as of 2009, the count includes these programs but still excludes apprenticeship programs.

Totals may not add up to the sum of all categories due to rounding.

As per the Statistics Canada Standard approved in October 2021, the Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS) collects information on gender. However, due to low counts, the "Non-binary person" category has been rolled into "Gender unknown" for the purposes of dissemination. "Gender unknown" (opens new window).

The "Field of study” variable for enrolments and graduates refers to the Primary groupings (opens new window) variant of the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) Canada 2021.

This category includes pre-technology education/pre-industrial arts programs; multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary studies, other; and high school/secondary diploma and certificate programs.

This category includes all programs without sufficient information to be classified within the primary groupings variant of the Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) Canada 2021.