Where I live, there just aren't enough spots in psychologist training programs. There are 8 spots for clinical psychology grad programs where I graduated from w

Where I live, there just aren't enough spots in psychologist training programs. There are 8 spots for clinical psychology grad programs where I graduated from with 1200-1300 psych undergrads. Psych enrollment increased by 20% in the last 5 years and the clinical psych program's training capacity stayed flat. Of those 8 spots, between 1 and 6 spots are filled by people from outside of the province including international students. (I'm oversimplifying a little. There are 6 accredited programs, but there are 10 undergrad universities that produce psych majors, so the numbers probably look worse overall.) You're right that the goal is to become a qualified psychologist, but the training pipeline doesn't match that goal. Crudely, there are training spots for less than 1% of psych undergrads (maybe 2% if you include research psychologists). There are alternative programs for counseling, but it's not the same license. The cost of these counseling programs is also astronomical for Canada. I know people who went that route and have $150k loans to pay back. If you're competitive enough to get into one of the clinical programs, they are funded (with students given stipends ranging from $30-$40k/year), but even if they aren't tuition is under $7k/year.