For a single mother, this sacrifice is due also to a lack of adequate financial resources to pay for quality child care. The assistance provided by the government is insignificant. A single mother ruefully commented:

You are allowed to claim $730.00 per child a year. I would like to see anyone raise a child on that! It's ridiculous. You are penalized for having children.

The foreign student's experience is seldom acknowledged. Even though there is a foreign students' office and advisor within every university, often such people are employed part-time and are not always available. In addition to their feelings of isolation, many foreign students encounter financial difficulties. They are subjected to paying the differential fees and are not eligible for a Canada or Ontario student loan. Assistantships are available to foreign students, but many miss the February deadline because the mailing system in third world countries is extremely slow and places foreign students at a disadvantage in competing with Canadians.

Lack of physical access to a university was identified as a barrier, especially for those part-time students who live out of town. Since many may attend classes only once a week, they, like foreign students, experience isolation. They are seldom able to participate in student activities on campus and consequently have little contact with the university community. One interviewee described her experience this way:

I was driving two hours each way to get here. I would come in, take my class, spend a couple of hours in the library and go home. I don't have time to get to know other people except those in my class and then only if I had to do things with them. So you feel really, at times, alienated from the place and isolated, and then I would go home and not have anybody to talk to about school.

Since most part-time students are women, this isolation is experienced by them as an additional barrier to education. Barriers are also encountered on a psychological level. One woman expressed a fear of failure:

There are a lot of psychological barriers that women have been socialized into-that we shouldn't go for further education and that it takes a lot of courage, guts and determination. It took me thirteen years after I got my last degree. I had to spend the time building up my courage to apply. I was scared that they were going to reject me and I was afraid of failing. I still am.

Moreover, women seldom receive moral support from their spouses or families. Many struggle to overcome negative criticism and still feel compelled to justify their decision to pursue a graduate degree. One interviewee exclaimed:

My mother always says what's wrong with her that she has a daughter who's not married with children. How has she failed as a mother that I have done this!

Another interviewee reported that a male faculty member attempted to discourage her from pursuing her M.A. because she is married and has two children.

Barriers relating to socio-economic status were overtly expressed by one interviewee, by others more subtly. This woman from a working-class background asserted:

I think a lot of it is not only financial, but also psychological. We think that only certain kinds of people should get degrees or go to college or university and get an education.

Another interviewee said:

If I had been the one going to law school, things might have been different. But I wasn't. Being a woman, my goals were less high.

The interviewees were asked whether they were getting the same educational opportunity as male students, and were given three areas to consider: access, program content, and outcome. All of the women interviewed indicated they have not experienced any difficulties with actual access to institutions. A student explained: