Abstract
Undertaken by students and faculty, this study asks why students drop out of the University of Toronto Scarborough (UTSC). It highlights three interconnected reasons: 1) Anti-black racism, with the study finding that Black students are more likely than others to associate leaving with negative experiences with faculty and staff; 2) Institutional Failure, with the study finding that around half of the students who left UTSC had enrolled in another institution of higher education, sometimes reporting this as more welcoming; 3) Economic and Cultural Inequalities, with the study finding that participants undertook more than seventeen hours of paid work per week. The report calls attention to the fact that UofT does not collect race-based data on students that can shed light on these and other systematic patterns of disadvantage.
Authors: Olivia Bernard, Mark Hunter, Frankie Leung, Rameez Sadafal, Andrew Opper, Vallari Patel, & Anab Ulusow