What is known, however, is that there is no data to indicate the relative effec- tiveness these subsidies to individuals have in promoting better access to post- secondary education.4 Part of the problem in evaluating the effectiveness of subsidies is that there has been a notable lack of attention paid to the question of who receives each of these subsidies. [...] I. A Portrait of the Student Body Crucial to an understanding of the distribution of benefits of PSE transfers is an understanding of the student body itself. [...] The Distribution of Student Loans and Grants by Family Income Quartile in Canada, data from a recent student panel survey conducted by the Canada Millennium Scholar- ship shows that there is no difference in the reported family incomes of younger and older stu- dents, which strongly suggests that the SLID data is a reasonably accurate picture of the student body as a whole. [...] The Size of the Pie: Total Government Transfers to Individuals in Respect of Post-Secondary Education According to the most recent available data, the total annual amount of transfers from all levels of government in respect of post-secondary education is just over $4.75 billion. [...] The former seems likely to tilt costs in the direction of low- income students, the latter in the opposite direction.