We pay one of the highest tuition in the whole country, I mean for this year alone for a first year undergraduate degree the amount would go over 5,000 (not including books). That is a lot of money!!!! Correct me if I am wrong but the Quebec average is around 2,500. So, I repeat my question "Where the &*% is my money going!!!?"
For those who are a bit lost I will fill you in. I am a student at the wonderful Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada and don’t get me wrong it is a nice school. However, we are curently paying one of the highest tuition in Canada (and it is going up next year too).
The fact that I might not be able to afford next years tuition is unsettling but not what is setting me off at the pit now. It is the fact that we are now going into the second week of a serious TEACHERS STIRKE. :mad:
I have been out of class all this time trying to understand where is it going? If I am paying one of the highest tuition in Canada how come the teachers are being paid one of the lowest salaries? Why the heck aren’t the administrators trying to settle this as fast as possible? Why is it that the two sides are acting like two kids in a school yard?
I need to eat up my newfound free time somewhere so I thought a good rant at the pit would be nice. I just hope this will be over soon. Thanks for listening, I’ll just get myself some coco to sooth my soul .
Frankly, I’m actually surprised that Canadian universities COST money. I thought they were free. I mean that they didn’t have to be paid privatly. ehehehehe…
Anyway, in the US, 5000 dollars will barely get you into a junior college much less a state and even LESS, a private college. But, I guess in Nova Scotia, it’s a lot of money.
We are looking at a potential 18% tuition increase next year, which could would mean an increase of more that a thousand dollars for a good number of students here.
I know kids that are already struggeling to make ends meet and I have no idea what is going to happen if they have to dish out another $1,000+.
And with the limits they have on student loans, it could cause more problems long term.
Could you please hold on that slap, that figure doesn’t take into account: Books and supplies, Room and board (for residents), Health Insurance, or other miscellaneous fees.
It is just the straight average tuition for a first year science undergraduate student, only one year in a public University such as Dalhousie.
And while the Dalhousie average is over 5,000 dollars for science this year, according to my research the Nova scotia average was $4,408 dollars for a plain Arts degree last year (here is my source).
Also the total USA average for the same student would be $3,754 (here is my source) and the Canadian average is $3,405 (here is my source). Both are about $1,000 less then the Nova Scotia average, of which is about 1,000 less than the Dalhousie average.
And I was wrong the Quebec average, it was not around $2,500 it was $1,898 :eek:.
The money is not my main problem either, it was the fact that I have been out of school in the past week because our teachers are on strike because of low pay.
Hey, it’s not that your tuition isn’t going anywhere, the problem is that neither the feds nor the provinces are putting in their share. I mean PUBLIC EDUCATION right? And in Ontario, deregulation of undergrad fees may come in the near future. Bastards. Don’t get me started…
And I feel for you on the strike thing. Had one here @ York (TAs) last year, lasted damn near three months. Some killer parties though. (actually more like one really really really long one)
Except, of course, that the $3,754 US average is in American dollars. The exchange rate being about $1.00 US = $1.59 CA, then $3754 US = $5957 CA. So the average US student is still paying well over what you are.
Which is not to say that I don’t sympathize; tuiution in general is rapidly becoming unaffordable to the college student who doesn’t have substantial financial aid. And it’s difficult for older people (which category I’m rapidly approaching) to realize this, since tuition wasn’t quite so expensive, even in real dollars, when they were in school.
Well, I’m going to vote in the student elections at my Quebec school, which cheap or not wants to raise international student fees by $2000. Yipes.
We’ve got students sitting on the floors to take midterms, corporate takeov- uh, ‘partnership’ breathing down our necks, threatened fare hikes, and everyone is surprised that this happened since the various layers of government slashed funding to post-secondary education, as if an uneducated populace were somehow cheaper and more economically perfoming than an educated one. :rolleyes: :mad:
The average American is not paid in Canadian dollars so they don’t have to pay the rate a Canadian would have to go to an American university.
It doesn’t take an economics student to figure that if a person that has an American job and goes to an American school the money is on par with a person that has a Canadian job, going to a Canadian school. The exchange rate only comes in when the variables mix such as someone getting paid American dollars going to an Canadian school (considerbly less then the reverse).
Also correct me if I’m wrong but isn’t the minimum wage (average student’s pay check) in America higher then the Nova Scotian one ($5.80 and after the higher Candian tax the amount even less). So it is more likely that I am working harder for less pay and more tuition (now I realy need more coco). Cyberhwk: I feel your pain man. Maybe you should go to a university in Quebec? With the Dollar exchange rate and the low Quebec rate, it could be dirt cheap. Just a thought.
I know this is a hijack, but I just thought I’d throw some numbers out there for U.S. schools. I live in Illinois, and for me to attend the University of Illinois at Chicago as an in-state residence would cost me $2000 a year plus about $5000-7000 for housing, and about $1000 more a year for books/supplies/incidental expenses.
I attend the University of Chicago, however, which is a private university. The base cost is $26,000, and when you add in books, room and board, various administrative fees, insurance, and the fact that sometimes I need to get off campus and see a movie, the price tag jumps to $40,000-$45,000 a year.
At any rate, I can understand your frustration with the teacher’s strike. Why pay if you’re not learning, right? What a pain. (To say the least!!)
Uh, no, efrem, it doesn’t work that way. An American in an equivalent job makes FEWER of those expensive American dollars than a Canadian would make in Canadian dollars - about proportional to the exchange rate. A schoolteacher who makes $45,000 Canadian teaching in Ottawa would, with the same amount of experience, probably make about $30,000 in U.S. dollars teaching in Washington, D.C. If you’re a struggling student working at Burger King, you’ll make $6.85 an hour minimum wage at the Burger King in the Square One on Mississauga, Ontario; if you’re working at a Burger King in Palo Alto, California, you’ll be making about $5.15 an hour in USD, that being the U.S. minimum wage. Your economics student friends know it’s folly to just assume you’ll have as many American dollars as Canadian dollars. You won’t, and it’s wrong to assume prices are equivalent.
As to your tuition - borrow the money if you have to. It’s worth it in the long run. I do question just how much about the norm your tuition is, however. The numbers you cited are probably tuition without adding all the extra tuition fees. I’m not talking about books; I’m talking about the extra crud in your tuition bill like $200 faculty fees, fees to run the communist rag the AMS puts out, $9 for the walkhome service, $40 for your health insurance, etc. etc. The tuition fees the other schools advertise often do not include these fees, which you are eminently aware of in your own tuition bill. If you went to another school you might be surprised how quickly that $3000 tuition they advertised becomes $4500 when they hand you the bill.
Good point, efrem. The US minimum wage (nation-wide, although I think some localities might mandate higher wages) is $5.15 US = $8.18 CA. So perhaps a better metric is: minimum wage hours worked to afford tuition.
US average = $3754/($5.15/hr) = 729 hours
My UG alma mater (Michigan State University) = $4972/($5.15/hr) = 966 hours
Quebec average = $1668/($7.00/hr) = 238 hours
Nova Scotia average = $4408/($5.80/hr) = 760 hours
Your situation = $5000+/($5.80/hr) = 860+ hours
Although, of course, this avoids the question of what actual wages college students are making, which may or may not be substantially above minimum wage in different areas.
Just for fun: when I was in school: $2734/($3.35/hr) = 816 hours
Hours worked to pay tuition costs for public 4-yr university
For my dad (65/66): $298/($1.25/hr) = 238 hours
For me: (88/89): $1846/($3.35/hr) = 551 hours
Currently: $3774/(5.15/hr) = 732 hours
See a trend here?
Sorry about the minor hijack, but I’ve had a number of conversations with people of my parent’s generation who don’t understand why “kids these days” have such a hard time working to pay for college. The concept of tuition hikes beyond the rate of inflation seems to have no meaning…
“kids these days” are getting screwed blue and tattooed, IMO. Not only are you getting reamed for tuitions, but you need at least a degree to get anywhere in the workforce now (compared with graduating high school or going to vocational school for older folks), you will get reamed for rent costs, mortgages, cars, etc. - everything you buy and everything you do is wildly more expensive than it was for people in the 50’s.
Again IMO, I don’t believe wages have kept up with cost of living increases. How could a family in the 50’s live comfortably on one salary, and modern families can barely get by on two? I don’t think all of the incongruity can be blamed on poor spending habits.
Gah, that really sucks, efrem. I wish that administrators would realize that teachers are important. And I wish that all parties involved would consider the financial and economic well-being of the students involved, who far outnumber the teachers and admistrators. Unfortunately, we’re still a long way off from that.
However, I can’t really relate to your tuition troubles. My college charges $18,200 a year, plus room and board, and also plus books. This will be increased to $19,100 next semester. Ironically enough, my college is considered to be a good value; most other colleges of its caliber charge more than this.
There are some very good public schools out there; don’t get me wrong. However, tuition is tooled by state, which means that if your state’s universities don’t suit your needs, then it sucks. You have to either settle or get screwed.
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