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One thing nobody has mentioned is also that most Waterloo students come out of there with more money than they had going in. No crippling student loans to deal

by rll 15y ago

One thing nobody has mentioned is also that most Waterloo students come out of there with more money than they had going in. No crippling student loans to deal with. Co-op terms aren't just great experience they also pay quite well. (Unless things have changed, I graduated in 1993 and this was the case back then)

imack 15y ago
Tuition was de-regulated in the 90's and went up 15% a year through most of the 2000's. I'd say it's doable but not a given.
nekojima 15y ago
I graduated in the mid-90s from UW and I can say from my classmates and friends from a variety of faculties most had $20k+ loans to repay (though that first year after a lot was forgiven by the govt program). At that time, in the mid-90s, the majority of students weren't in co-op at UW. Even those in Math, CS, Eng, Sci and Actg who did get co-ops usually it was at breakeven or a slight net positive for the experience, given the extra expenses of travel to Ottawa, Toronto or other cities with accommodation, plus 4-month rentals in KW were more expensive than 8-month.
potatolicious 15y ago
UW engineering tuition is through the roof now. It's so bad now that I'm not sure what I would've done had I had the unfortunate luck of being born 3-4 years later. Breaking even with co-op is out of the question for a lot of students, though it still helps a lot. After all, without co-op, for most UW engineering programs you're now looking at $40-45K tuition + living costs + supplies/books... A $80-90K loan is not at all out of the question.
- ekosz 15y ago
  Is that per year or for the whole degree? I was living in Waterloo and the students I talked to were paying $5-$15k a semester. To put that in perspective for an American, at RIT I was paying $40k a year + all of those living expenses.
  - potatolicious 15y ago
    That's for the whole degree. Waterloo engineering is $10-12K per year at this point for just tuition. Stack living costs on top... Definitely not as bad as the Americans have it, but education is starting to approach unaffordability, and it'd be a shame if we had an American-style system in Canada.

by rll 15y ago

imack 15y ago

Tuition was de-regulated in the 90's and went up 15% a year through most of the 2000's. I'd say it's doable but not a given.

nekojima 15y ago

I graduated in the mid-90s from UW and I can say from my classmates and friends from a variety of faculties most had $20k+ loans to repay (though that first year after a lot was forgiven by the govt program). At that time, in the mid-90s, the majority of students weren't in co-op at UW. Even those in Math, CS, Eng, Sci and Actg who did get co-ops usually it was at breakeven or a slight net positive for the experience, given the extra expenses of travel to Ottawa, Toronto or other cities with accommodation, plus 4-month rentals in KW were more expensive than 8-month.

potatolicious 15y ago

UW engineering tuition is through the roof now. It's so bad now that I'm not sure what I would've done had I had the unfortunate luck of being born 3-4 years later. Breaking even with co-op is out of the question for a lot of students, though it still helps a lot. After all, without co-op, for most UW engineering programs you're now looking at $40-45K tuition + living costs + supplies/books... A $80-90K loan is not at all out of the question.

ekosz 15y ago
Is that per year or for the whole degree? I was living in Waterloo and the students I talked to were paying $5-$15k a semester. To put that in perspective for an American, at RIT I was paying $40k a year + all of those living expenses.
- potatolicious 15y ago
  That's for the whole degree. Waterloo engineering is $10-12K per year at this point for just tuition. Stack living costs on top... Definitely not as bad as the Americans have it, but education is starting to approach unaffordability, and it'd be a shame if we had an American-style system in Canada.