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HAY RIVER - Across the Northwest Territories, students are preparing for graduation and are – or will soon be – making important decisions about their futures, including whether or not to attend post-secondary school.

"It's just been in the last two weeks that the reality of high school ending and post-secondary life starting has kicked in," said James Robinson, principal of Chief Jimmy Bruneau school in Behchoko.

George Bailey, 18, of Behchoko, is currently weighing his post-secondary options, with high school graduation looming on the horizon. - photo courtesy of George Bailey

George Bailey, 18, an outgoing Grade 12 student who Robinson jokingly calls his school's "spokesperson," is currently pondering his options.

"I haven't applied yet. I just really need to think about it."

He's teetering between law and political science right now.

"It's been changing in my head so often that I don't know what I'm going to do," he said.

Bailey, who eventually wants to return to the North and get into politics, is fairly certain he wants to go to university though – preferably the University of Alberta in Edmonton, since it's close to home.

Robinson said of his 27 students set to graduate, 14 have sent applications to post-secondary institutions.

Some have applied locally, to Fort Smith or Yellowknife's Aurora College in teaching or natural resources diploma programs.

Others have looked south to the Northern Alberta Institute of Technology in Edmonton for trades programs or colleges like Grande Prairie Regional College for diploma and degree programs.

In recent weeks, the public backlash from cuts to student financial assistance performance scholarships have outlined the unique problems Northern students face in acquiring a post-secondary education.

As most degrees and apprenticeships aren't offered in the NWT, students must travel long distances, live away from home and family for years, while making ends meet paying increasingly rising tuition costs.

For some like Julie Hintz, 18, the plan has always been to leave the North for school.

The Grade 12 student at Yellowknife's Sir John Franklin High School has applied for creative writing and music therapy programs at Capilano College in Vancouver, B.C.

The lifelong Yellowknifer, who intends to return after school, acknowledges there will be challenges involved with making the move.

"I'd be heading down in January, so it will be hard to find places to stay at that time because of the Olympics and stuff," she said.

Student financial assistance (SFA) provides students with help dealing with these challenges, offering grants to pay for a portion of tuition, remissible and repayable loans to help students get by month-to-month, as well as travel to the south and home for students at summer and Christmas.

According to its 2007-08 SFA annual report, the territorial government paid out more than $9.2 million in grants and $4.9 million in loans that fiscal year, with nearly 1,200 students receiving basic grants.

The government also spent $272,000 in merit-based scholarships, but the program was axed in the latest budget.

While financial difficulties are an unfortunate part of academia, other challenges present themselves for students outside the territory's larger centres.

Education minister Jackson Lafferty announced in February graduation rates have increased across the board over the past 10 years, yet the number of students with high school diplomas is still far lower in communities outside Yellowknife and the regional centres.

And while graduation rates play a part, a student from a smaller community is twice less likely to get a university degree than a student from one of the regional centres – Hay River, Inuvik or Fort Smith – and three-and-a-half less likely than a student from Yellowknife, according to a 2005 government report.

Robinson said while some students are looking forward to leaving for school, others have naturally expressed fears about leaving their tight-knit community, large families and the support structures they've always known.

"You lose that close support you've had your whole life and you are alone," he said.

"Some students like that opportunity, but everybody is challenged by it."

"Students want good quality programs close to home," Robinson added.

And that shows, as enrollment at Aurora College has increased since the start of the decade – 33 per cent from 2000 to 2004-05.

Students – many from communities – are getting their pre-trades training, certificates, diplomas, early apprenticeship and nursing and teacher education degrees in partnerships with southern schools with increasing frequency from programs offered in 24 communities.

Maurice Evans, president of Aurora College, said the college offers vocational programs with direct links to Northern employment.

Robinson said if the college continues to offer relevant and high-quality programs, students are going to choose to stay in the North because there is so much more support at home.

Evans said the lower numbers of post-secondary students from communities could come from a lack of educational capital – or the recognition of the importance of school performance and post-secondary education passed from parent to child.

"Many of the students from the larger centres, if their parents received their education from the university, there is a bit of a sense that that's where their son or daughter will go," he said.

He said many parts of the territory are a generation-and-a-half off-the-land, and with the disturbing legacy of residential schools still lingering, a mistrust of educational systems permeates amongst some.

"Many of the students that are coming here from the smaller communities, it is often the first time someone (from their family) has sought a post-secondary education or diploma," he said.

But Evans is optimistic. He sees educational capital growing, resulting in the higher enrollment numbers than 10 years ago. In a 2004 NWT Communities survey, communities had a large number of residents with certificates, diplomas and trades.

"We are seeing many children of (former) students coming to attend and it's an expectation that they would attend," he said, as people reconcile past residential school experiences and embrace education, encouraging their children to attend post-secondary.

"You have to develop that educational capital and you know it's an evolutionary process. It increases with each generation," he said.

Evans said it's important as ever because with the way the world is going, more of a premium is placed on higher education. "As economies shrink, (employers) are going to go with people with broader skill sets."

Bailey said a lot of students in Behchoko are getting involved in trades programs and post-secondary now because they recognize it opens the door to better paying jobs. He said he sees people don't have the attitude that they think they can't go anywhere because they're from a small town.

"A lot of people that are graduating are going onto post-secondary," he said, then referring to a friend who wants to go to university as a biologist – "he wants to work with chromosomes, that's what he's telling me," he laughs.

Both Bailey and Hintz realize one chapter of life is ending and another is beginning.

Hintz said she relishes the impending experience.

"It's exciting."