I’ll just say that, though I might disagree on a few details, I think RickJay generally sums it up pretty well in the OP. Very broadly speaking, I think the Canadian vs US university system tends to reflect the greater socioeconomic egalitarianism and social cohesiveness in Canada, which is also reflected in the health care system as well as in the public school system. Not to digress about public schools, but I think there’s a commonality with that culture of socioeconomic egalitarianism – there’s a great article on that here: How Canada became an education superpower – one of whose main points is that the Canadian public school system puts a special focus on promoting equal opportunity for achievement across the spectrum of advantaged and disadvantaged students.
That same culture is reflected in the university system both in the fact that there are not as wide differences between the quality of Canadian universities as there are in the US, especially at the undergraduate level, and in the fact of all universities being more accessible to all Canadians. Greater distinctions exist among them in terms of graduate schools and research, which is also where distinctions tend to be more pronounced between Canadian and top US universities.
To be sure, Canadian universities do great research, but there just isn’t the same level of funding – something I would dearly love to see corrected. That is, indeed, why some of my family members have become USians, now citizens and so thoroughly Americanized that they’ve learned how to be disgusted with politics and how to fight with health insurers with the best of them! And the reason this happened is the metaphorical “offer you can’t refuse” from top US institutions that no one in Canada could compete with – I’m not just referring to salary, but to research facilities and funding. We need to do much better on research funding, not just for the noble reasons of discovery, but for our own long-term economic good.
So which is “a better system” depends on lot on what you value most, and it’s not a straightforward question by any means. The US college system is largely the result of the system’s evolution in a more socioeconomically stratified environment.
But this isn’t the choice anyone is facing. If you can get into Harvard, you’re competitive to a full-ride merit scholarship at any number of schools, state and private. And you’re competitive to get attractive but not full rides to places like Duke or Vandy or Emory. So if the choice is Harvard at $50K a year or USC at $15K or state flagship at $10k or SMU at $5K or local regional for free . . . see, there’s a lot of nuance there. It’s never a simple binary choice.
Furthermore, there’s a lot of people at the Big Expensive Schools who are from very affluent families. They aren’t there for the ROI. People with incomes over $500k/year and significant wealth send their kids to expensive universities because they find them to be an amazing experience. I mean, I think it’s remarkable that people wealthier than me spend $5000 to go on a vacation. But I don’t think that means they are idiots who don’t understand how shitty the ROI is on a vacation. I think it just means they are paying money they can afford on an experience they want. The same thing is true for the merely affluent kid who decides that Harvard at $50k isn’t worth it, but USC at $15K is. Even that may not have a better ROI compared to local state school for free, but it would be a very different experience–and if a family can afford it and wants to do that, that’s fine.
Past that, for middle class or poor kids, schools with good financial aid (not all of which are as selective as Harvard) can be much, much cheaper for middle-income and poor students.
Anyone? I don’t know what makes you say this. I’ve internet-talked with many Millennials who–despite having some financial aid and scholarships–still wound up with large student loan debt. Some even attended Ivies and other premier schools. Their only mistake seems to be that they weren’t able to get a job after college or graduate school that made their student loans worth their while. (And some of them even majored in STEM).
I could have gone to Cornell to study biology. But even with the partial scholarship they offered me, I would have wound up with six-figure debt if I had gone there. Fortunately I decided to go to Georgia Tech where I didn’t have to pay anything. Would it have been insane for me to have gone to Cornell given its reputation? No, yet I am very relieved I didn’t make that choice since it would have likely made my life harder than it had to be.
That said, I disagree with Sam Stone that it doesn’t matter where one goes to school (barring a couple of areas of study). For members of stigmatized socioeconomic and racial groups, this simply isn’t true. While the middle-class white guy probably strikes most people as competent and capable right out of the box, this is not the case if you’re black or brown. For minorities and poor whites, having an Ivy League pedigree certifies you’re a “one of the good ones”.
I also see at my own workplace the importance of attending the “right” state schools. You graduated from UVA, Virginia Tech, College of William and Mary, ODU, VCU? Great, because you’ll likely be first to hear about internships. Or your graduate advisor will likely know so-and-so who works in such-in-such department and will put in a good word for you if you apply for a position. But you graduated from some rinky-dink college that no one has ever heard of? Yeah, sorry. You probably won’t even get screened in for an interview. Not because you school sucks in any objective sense, but because you are not able to flash the weird indicia of “belongingness” that the hiring manager is looking for.
I see university bumper stickers and clothing all the time. Most Canadian universities have alumni associations. Toronto, McGill, UBC and Alberta have endowments over $1B, but that’s in Canadian dollars.
McGill was about 25% American students and another 20% international. My address book after first year had friends from forty countries.
For a Canadian, it makes sense to start at a Canadian university and go elsewhere for graduate studies. Though Canadian graduate programs are good, they are underfunded. Canadians are impressed with people who have gone to elite schools outside of the country, but in most fields you need skills once you get the job.
I know my school songs, I guess. But they only matter in universities located in a small town. In Toronto and Montreal, the city has a lot to offer beyond the school - which results in less school spirit and cohesiveness.
And you know, that Harvard grad. If he needs his car fixed or his air conditioning or furnace has stopped or his toilets have quit working - you know who he will call? The guy who went to a 2 year tech school.
Yes, but not to the same extent as some US schools. I was in one of the historically Jewish frats at the University of Western Ontario where our frat house was off campus and about 8 guys lived in it. We went to visit our chapter at Case Western Reserve where the house was officially sanctioned and had room for 50-100 people.
I wasn’t clear. I wasn’t saying no one needed to take on debt. I was saying that realistically no one is facing a choice between Harvard at full cost or their regional state school. There is a spectrum of choices, and if you are competitive for Harvard, you will have a range of choices at different price points. Some of those price points might make sense even if there is a technically cheaper option. You are an example of that–you were accepted at Cornell, and had a full ride to Georgia Tech. Your “Cornell Alternative” wasn’t UNG. (Though these days Georgia Tech is arguably more competitive, at least for STEM, than Cornell, and certainly has worse financial aid for non-residents).
I agree completely. It’s also true that expensive private schools are better at getting kids through college in 4 years. There’s just a ton more support. First-generation kids face enormous battles getting through school, and one of them is the lack of institutional knowledge about how the process even works. At junior colleges and regional state schools, there are a ton of cracks to fall through. At the fancy privates, they notice and support. And you can see it in the stats: Community Colleges have about 15% of students finish a 4-year degree in 6 years; regional state schools are more like 30-50%; the selective private schools are 85-95%. Add to that fantastic need-based aid, and selective private schools are absolutely the best choice for poor, first-generation college students.
Edit timed out: It’s also worth noting that affluent kids take the cheaper option all the time. This is why yield is so low at a lot of schools; lots of affluent or even wealthy kids apply to fancy private schools to see if they can get in, in hopes of a scholarship, or thinking their grandmother might be impressed enough to pony up–and then, when the chips are down, end up opting for a less-prestigious school that offers them money. USC and Wash U have whole scholarships aimed specifically at these kids. Almost all the mid-level private schools and state flagships have “Presidential Scholarships” aimed at these kids. And lots of them take the money. Truly, most of the “full pay” kids at the Ivys come from very affluent families–families that have been paying $35k a year in private school tuition since these kids were in 1st grade. Something like 75% of actual tuition dollars paid in the top 100 schools come from graduates of the 150 most exclusive, expensive high schools in America. Those are the full pay kids.
I was lucky to have been a high school graduate in the early 90s. I was able to go to public university for free because of Georgia lottery’s HOPE scholarship, which at that time only required you keep a B average. Now you have to keep a higher GPA and there’s a lofty SAT requirement to get the scholarship as a freshman. If I had been born just 15 years later, I wouldn’t have qualified for the scholarship because of that damn SAT requirement. Georgia Tech is still relatively cheap, but I can imagine a scenario where I would have chosen the less impressive school that did offer me a free ride rather than going to the school that only offered me a partial scholarship. Or I can imagine going with Cornell because I would have believed $25K a year at an Ivy was a better deal than $8K a year at an excellent public school.
I definitely think there are a lot of 18-year-olds who are choosing schools more for their “name brand” with an unfortunate Devil-may-care attitude towards cost. Like this guy. He doesn’t say whether he considered going to a cheap but “good” public school. I suspect he did but his desire to have a high status university on his resume overrode any fledgling sense of fiscal responsibility he might have had at the time.
Thing is, I don’t know if it is fair to call his decision “crazy”. Definitely sounds like a bad choice with hindsight, but perhaps for every guy like this one, there’s another guy from the same SES background who was able to make his NYU degree work for him financially. Maybe this guy didn’t try as hard as he could to get scholarships and financial aid. I have no idea. But it does seem to me that the allure of pricey name brand institutions can come with some major downsides for those without a lot of resources. So I do think it is worthwhile to push back against this allure by at least asking oneself whether the allure is based on facts or perception.
Do regional employers prefer local college graduates in Canada? For example, would employers in say Quebec, would most of there employees come from colleges in Quebec or would there be many from say Alberta?
Here in the midwest I just notice most people go to local colleges with few from colleges say on the coast or the Ivies. I really only see ivy degrees in people in law, medicine, or academia. Same way I doubt employers in California see many graduates from say Nebraska.
Also what would be the New York and Los Angeles of Canada?
Sure, but that’s true of literally everything people buy. Some people are foolish or have bad information. But there seems to be a lot of Grumpy Old People who think everyone who doesn’t opt for 2 years of junior college and 2 years at the cheapest state school is just throwing money away. IME, most kids think really carefully about this and make pretty rational choices. Most of the full pay kids at private schools are rich enough that it’s a manageable expense. Most of the poor kids have lucrative aid. Most of the middle-income kids have partial scholarships that make the cost much less. The ones who made poor choices are the ones that get in the news. No one writes an article on “I went to Harvard at $75k/year but it worked out because my dad made millions on the stock market before I was born”.
I tend to think he didn’t get good advice. This is why I keep pushing back on “It’s dumb to go to Harvard when you could go to your local state branch and live at home for far less”. This field is insanely complicated and constantly changing. NYU is notorious for offering little need-based aid, though it’s been getting better. But, for example, if you can get into NYU you’re competitive for BU or Grinnell or Case Western, and those (very different!) schools generally offer amazing need-based aid–but what first-generation student has heard of any of them, or would think to apply there?
People that know little or nothing about this make these recommendations and my kids read them, so then I have to deal with kids who don’t want to take $2500/yr in subsidized loans to go to Babson or Oberlin or Emory because they could live at home and go to Local Regional for free, and they’ve heard Student Loans are the devil and that it’s dumb lazy status-obsessed special snowflakes who borrow money for school. Yes, borrowing $30k/year to go to college is dumb. There is almost always a better alternative. But there just isn’t any blanket advice on what’s the wisest path to post-secondary education. There are a gazillion variables, and “don’t borrow too much just because of the name” is about as useful as “buy low, sell high”. I mean, yes, that’s true, but it’s not helpful.
Well Quebec employers tends to require sufficient French language skills to work in the province so…typically Quebecers that went to McGill, Polytech or UQAM (Université du Québec à Montréal) will be hired out of school.
You’re also conflating college with university. Typically colleges like Algonquin focus on certification and technical degrees that rarely run more than 3 years. So for example you could get your nursing degree at a college allowing you to be a registered practical nurse, but to be a registered nurse would require a university nursing degree.
Canadian universities tend to be Bachelor/Masters/PhD focused instead.
Toronto is probably the New York equivalent, Vancouver is really more of a Seattle than LA and Montreal is itself.
I’ll be difficult Oil Thigh is the informal name of Queen’s College Colours and is all kinds of mixed up with the song/“dance” tied to the Oil Thigh chorous.
Being the superior engineering student, I naturally remember Godiva’s Hymn.
UNL alone has about 21,000 undergraduates and 5,000 graduate students at any given time (including a sizable number of overseas students). The fact that only a small percentage of 6000-7000 people graduating every year make it to California likely owes more to geography (California being, what, 1500 miles away?) than to school quality. Among others, UNL has (or at least used to have when I lived in Lincoln) a highly-regarded biochemistry program.
And the reason this happened is the metaphorical “offer you can’t refuse” from top US institutions that no one in Canada could compete with – I’m not just referring to salary, but to research facilities and funding. We need to do much better on research funding, not just for the noble reasons of discovery, but for our own long-term economic good.
Oil Thigh is the informal name of Queen’s College Colours and is all kinds of mixed up with the song/“dance” tied to the Oil Thigh chorous.