Based on an unpublished Statistics Canada longitudinal study, The Globe and Mail reports that Canadian students are as likely to zizag their way through post-secondary education as they are to follow the straight and narrow.

About one-quarter of college students take time off, take more than five years to graduate or change their minds about their school or area of study. Almost one in five college students do not finish.

For those who go to university, the tendency to switch or interrupt their studies is even higher. More than one-third of students are still on campus after five years or graduate in another discipline or at another place than where they started, the research shows. About 10 per cent leave school without graduating.