Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS)

Detailed information for 2024/2025

The Postsecondary Student Information System (PSIS) is a national survey that enables Statistics Canada to provide detailed information on enrolments and graduates of Canadian public postsecondary institutions to meet policy and planning needs in the field of postsecondary education.

• Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s)
• Description
• Data sources and methodology

Description

PSIS collects information pertaining to the programs and courses offered at an institution, as well as information regarding the students themselves and the program(s) and course(s) in which they were registered, or from which they have graduated. PSIS is also designed to collect continuing education data. This information is available from the PSIS cross-sectional files. Longitudinal PSIS files could be produced for further research purposes. Please see Technical Reference Guides for the Education and Labour Market Longitudinal Platform (ELMLP) at the following address: https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/en/catalogue/37200001.

Reference period: The start date for the PSIS report is the day after the end of the institution's previous winter term, which is usually a date in April, May or June. The reference period is one year from this start date.

Collection period: December through February

Subjects

• Educational attainment
• Education, training and learning
• Fields of study

Data sources and methodology

Target population

The frame used is the list of Canadian public and private - not for profit postsecondary institutions (universities, community colleges, CÉGEPs and trade and vocational training centres) compiled by the Centre for Education Statistics of Statistics Canada. The collection unit is the Canadian postsecondary institution. Each institution sends data pertaining to its programs and its students.

As of 2009, PSIS only collects information from public and private (not for profit) institutions funded by provincial and territorial Ministry of Education. Public postsecondary institutions funded by any federal departments are not included within PSIS.

Instrument design

The content of the current record layout was developed in close cooperation with provincial education ministries, federal government departments, various national organizations and professional associations. Extensive consultations were done both at the national and provincial levels.

The current record layout content is aimed at addressing the main data requirements of those various data users for purposes such as: planning, policy making and labour force supply analysis. Consultations were also done with the personnel of the different postsecondary institutions of each province and territory across Canada to ensure that the data elements included were or potentially would be available from their administrative database.

Sampling

This survey is a census with a cross-sectional design.

No sampling is done.

Levels of enrolment presented are not meant to represent a complete enumeration of all students at postsecondary institutions during the academic year of 2024/2025. Rather, they are based on students enrolled in postsecondary institutions at the time of the fall snapshot date, that is, a single date chosen by the institution that falls between September 30 and December 1. Therefore, students who are not enrolled during this time period are excluded. This has a greater impact on colleges as they have a continuous intake of students and offer shorter programs.

Enrolments are based on program counts and not on student counts. If a student is enrolled in more than one program as of the snapshot date, then all of his/her programs are included in the count.

The count excludes students enrolled in apprenticeship programs.

Data sources

Data collection for this reference period: 2025-12-01 to 2026-02-02

Responding to this survey is mandatory.

Data are collected directly from survey respondents and extracted from administrative files.

The initial contact consists of a written data request via e-mail. Subsequent contacts are made via telephone, e-mail and possibly via an on-site visit with the respondent(s) at the institution(s).

The collection method used is electronic. It consists of institutions and coordinating bodies sending electronic flat files compiled and validated by Statistics Canada's Data Verification System (DVS). The DVS is an application that is used to verify data and identify problems within an institution's input files before they are sent to Statistics Canada.

The files are then returned to Statistics Canada via the Electronic File Transfer (EFT) facility. This software encrypts the files and sends them to a specified Internet address (to ensure that there is no error in destination).

View the Questionnaire(s) and reporting guide(s) .