Political views
A 2011 study found that Canadian university professors were left leaning but were not "hugely different in this respect from the Canadian university-educated population." There were considerable variation in political views which suggests "that contemporary characterizations of the North American professoriate as left- or right-leaning tend to be overdrawn". Disadvantaged status and socialization in the field were important in forming these views but self-selection effects were not excluded.
Value of higher education
A 2013 study by CIBC World Markets has found that the overall rate of unemployment among university graduates is only slightly lower than that of high school graduates, the wage boost associated with higher education is narrowing, and "a look at the dispersion of earnings across fields of study shows that there is a much greater risk of falling into a lower-income category for graduates of humanities and social sciences, with a limited risk for students of health, engineering or business. Those underperforming sectors comprise just under half of all recent graduates. In other words, Canadian students are continuing to pursue fields where upon graduation, they aren't getting a relative edge in terms of income prospects".
A 2014 study by Statistics Canada has found that, compared to recent university graduates in education, medicine, or engineering, graduates in the humanities are two or three times more likely to be employed in jobs requiring a high school education or less.
In 2015, Statistics Canada reported that almost one-quarter of university graduates reported having gone back to school and completed another certificate, diploma or university degree of equal or lesser level to their first degree. People with a university degree in the humanities or in physical and life sciences and technologies were the most likely to complete another postsecondary program of an equal or lesser level, while those with degrees in mathematics, information or computer sciences or in personal, protective or transportation services were the least likely. Most of the second diplomas were in business, management and public administration, education, and health and related fields.
A 2016 study from Statistics Canada found that the highest paying undergraduate degrees for both men and women in 2010 were management science and quantitative analyst, followed by chemical engineering. The highest paying master's degree was financial management and financial services.