A significantly different model emerged in western Canada. Unlike Ontario and Prince Edward Island, the dispersed populations of the provinces of Alberta and British Columbia had much less access to the few universities located in their large urban centres. Colleges were therefore developed to provide not only technical/vocational training, but university transfer programming as well. This provided greater access to university education through the college system, unlike the university and college systems in Ontario and Prince Edward Island that were purposefully kept distinct. Both Alberta and British Columbia also established specialized institutes of technology in addition to their community colleges.

In the provinces of Manitoba, New Brunswick and Newfoundland, as well as the territories of the Yukon and Northwest Territories, a third model arose that emphasized technical/vocational education with an emphasis on short term work-entry programs. This reflected the need within these provinces to address high unemployment rates. Adult education programs also held a central place in these provincial systems. As these systems evolved, a greater variety of programming was gradually incorporated, including university transfer programs.

A unique fourth model emerged in the province of Saskatchewan. The distinct rural/urban complexion of the province - numerous, sparsely populated rural regions and a few growing urban centres - led to a two-pronged system. In urban centres requiring technical and industrial skills, technical institutes were created to provide vocational and technical education. In rural areas, a "community college without walls" was established, where colleges served as brokers of education programming instead of as providers. As such, rural colleges' primary role was to arrange for the delivery by other institutions or agencies of educational programs that responded to locally articulated education demands. As Saskatchewan's system evolved, this brokerage model became less pronounced as rural colleges increasingly began to provide programming in addition to brokering it.

The final model that developed between 1965 and 1975 was in Quebec. All students in Quebec who want to pursue higher education must attend a Quebec college, or CEGEP. There are two streams within the CEGEP model. The first stream provides two years of pre-university education for those students moving on to university study. The second stream provides three years of technical education for those wishing to enter the workforce immediately after college. Unlike other provinces in Canada, the Quebec college model did not involve the provision of vocational education, which was provided in secondary schools, nor did it require students to pay tuition. The Quebec model was also more centralized than other provincial models. In other provinces, local boards were given governance responsibilities over colleges. In Quebec, partially elected institutional boards play some role in governance, but the province maintains significant responsibility of the sector.

From the 1960s through the early 1980s, these diverse provincial models enjoyed an enormous amount of success as instruments of social and economic development (Gallagher and Day 2001: 652; Gallagher 1987). Their distinct provincial features allowed them to deliver education and training that was responsive to the unique social and economic needs in each province. New economic and fiscal conditions began to emerge, however, that impacted all of the provincial college systems. By 1977, the nature of college funding began to change. Funding the provincial college systems through a process of cost sharing between the federal and provincial governments, as set out in the TVTA, was ended. The federal government's new Established Programs Financing Act (EPF) provided a system of unconditional block money transfers by the federal government to the provinces for higher education and health. Cost sharing with the provinces was abandoned. Thirty-two percent of EPF funding was meant to be spent on higher education and 68% on health, although provinces were not required to allocate the funds in those proportions. The federal government intended EPF funding to promote equal quality education throughout all the provinces while maintaining the provinces' jurisdiction over education.

Economic changes in Canada also began to emerge. These changes generated new and different community needs that required a response from the provincial college systems (Skolnik 2004). Canada experienced a long-term economic recession beginning in the 1980s. The recession created rising unemployment and economic stagnation within communities across the country. Faced with this shift in community needs, colleges adapted their programming priorities to place greater emphasis on addressing unemployment and economic growth needs, while education that addressed social and citizenship issues was given decreased emphasis (Dennison & Levin 1988: 51). This was the beginning of