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With the misleading headline "University costs may not be blocking poor youth: StatsCan," the CBC this Thursday played the well-worn media role of trying to discredit anyone calling for action.

This single-source story came after students protested for lower tuition. It is this context, and its presentation, that are most troubling. Personally, I agree that poverty and inequality themselves are the larger problems, and that they will not be overcome by lowering university costs. Because of the barriers to entry of required tests and an educational system that puts more effort into separating students than educating everyone at the highest level possible, the University of Massachusetts tends to be a subsidy for middle-class kids paid by the taxes of lower-income state residents. (This is also due to state taxes being relatively regressive.)

StatsCan's study is correct in highlighting other needs that need addressing to make Canada's universities a benefit to all (although the implication that the student protesters don't also favor more support for parents or better K-12 school is absurd), but the study (and more so CBC's article) almost certainly wrongly discounts the importance of university cost.

If you don't expect to be able to afford university, might that not affect your school effort (what else is the point?) or how hard your family pushes you? "I expect you to go to University, son, no idea how we're going to pay for it though." Shooting for a scholarship versus sure thing– don't these educated researchers think that makes a difference in who tries?

Look for where the CBC adds in the phrase "[or may not]" to imply the fantastical possibility that tuition costs have no potential impact on poor youths' college attendance.

Please note also that this is Canada, with very low tuition by U.S. standards; I remember seeing a study in the U.S. reporting that even for people with identical academic credentials, the wealthier students were more likely to go on to higher education. Devastating.

But here, for the record, is the happy Canadian spin on this issue:

Students from poorer families are less likely to enrol in university than children of wealthy families because of different parental expectations and weaker grades, suggests a new study released Thursday by Statistics Canada.

The perception that students from lower-income families can't afford university costs may be overstated, suggests Marc Frenette, a Statistics Canada researcher.

"Differences in long-term factors such as standardized test scores in reading obtained at age 15, school marks reported at age 15, parental influences, and high-school quality account for 84 per cent of the gap," Frenette said in his report titled, Why are youth from lower-income families less likely to attend university? "In contrast, only 12 per cent of the gap is related to financial constraints."

In 2003, fewer than one-third of 19-year-olds from low-income families attended university. By comparison, one-half of young people in the same age bracket from high-income families enrolled in university, the report found.

The study, which used data gathered in Statistics Canada's Youth in Transition Survey, found that young people from disadvantaged families on average had flagging standardized test results and lower overall school marks at age 15.

Higher-income families spend more on books, educational tools

Frenette says these issues may in fact be income related as higher-earning families are more able to spend on educational resources including books and museums.

"These actions may result in higher performance on standardized and scholastic tests, and thus, in a higher probability of attending university in the future," the study says.

The attendance gap is also in part related to parental expectations and pressures, Frenette suggests. Those with at least one parent who attended university are more likely to follow their parent's example than those whose parents had no post-secondary schooling.

"[Students] whose parents expect them to complete a university degree enjoy a 12- to 16-percentage point advantage in university participation over other students," Frenette says.

The study notes that while financial constraints do not appear to be a large deterrent to youth from low-income families, this may or may not be related to current financial aid programs.

"[Even] if credit constraints could be 'ruled out,' it is important to note that this would be conditional on the existing financial aid system. Removing that system may [or may not] introduce credit constraints," Frenette says.

The study was released a day after thousands of college and university students rallied across Canada, demanding lower tuition fees and more education funding. More than 80 student unions participated in the protest with campus rallies and marches on provincial legislatures.

Tuition fees range widely across the country, with Nova Scotia having the highest fees of any province. A 2006 Statistics Canada study found that undergraduate tuition fees are outpacing the inflation rate, with students paying an average of $4,347 in tuition fees, up from $4,211 last year.

Even though parent expectation is in the same range as 12 percent of the gap attributed directly to financial constraints, somehow it is deemed important (should there be a government program for parental expectations?) but somehow that 12 percent due to university costing too much isn't important.

It would have been nice to see if the results by province could have been more precise about the importance of tuition costs.

In what should have been a call to action for equality in all aspects of society, the CBC tried to blame the poor for not getting into university.

The real leasson I guess I'm trying to tease out of this report on a report is that while we must seek the greatest understanding of the world, we can't let the anti-change, anti-action way the establishment media will present facts, or lies, hurt our motivation.