You Know What Really Grinds My Gears? Now with 3x more gears...

[Wormius]

Originally Posted by Locke

Depending on the type of Engineering why not stay in Calgary? U of C Engineering is one of the best in the Country.

*spits on ground*

And I say that as a U of C Business student, sworn enemies of the U of C Engineering students!

Enemies 4 Lyfe!!

Nothing against U of C (though I have been on the receiving end of some very iffy engineering interns though). We are just philosophically opposed to our kids sticking around in their comfort zones. Time to spread their wings and fly and have new experiences with the safety net a little further away.

Plus their rooms are already being allocated for other purposes. My home office is moving up for the basement to a nice sunny room.

[puffnstuff]

I was repainting my oldest sons room to start it becoming my office as he was pulling out of the driveway on his way to university

[Ironhorse]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Plus their rooms are already being allocated for other purposes. My home office is moving up for the basement to a nice sunny room.

Smart. That way they can't move back in later!

[chemgear]

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

I was repainting my oldest sons room to start it becoming my office as he was pulling out of the driveway on his way to university

Two decades long prison sentence finally over, freedom!

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

I was repainting my oldest sons room to start it becoming my office as he was pulling out of the driveway on his way to university

Oh.

Multiple sentences eh? At least they are concurrent.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Nothing against U of C (though I have been on the receiving end of some very iffy engineering interns though). We are just philosophically opposed to our kids sticking around in their comfort zones. Time to spread their wings and fly and have new experiences with the safety net a little further away.

Plus their rooms are already being allocated for other purposes. My home office is moving up for the basement to a nice sunny room.

Oh hey...you're preaching to the choir here. I stayed in Calgary for my degree, but I've sent two kids to Lethbridge and another to Kelowna, I'm all for getting them out of their comfort zones, learning to live (more or less) on their own, but the quality of the program usually takes precedence.

I wanted them to go away to school because it was something that I never got to do.

But...it depends on the gap in quality of the education and what they want to do.

[Hemi-Cuda]

Originally Posted by Shazam

I am okay with post-secondary being free.

I wouldn't go as far as making all post-secondary education free, but I'd be all for standard grants that you could use for any type of post-secondary education, be it college, university, technical schools, or trade apprenticeships

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by Wormius

Nothing against U of C (though I have been on the receiving end of some very iffy engineering interns though). We are just philosophically opposed to our kids sticking around in their comfort zones. Time to spread their wings and fly and have new experiences with the safety net a little further away.

Plus their rooms are already being allocated for other purposes. My home office is moving up for the basement to a nice sunny room.

Interesting perspective. I'm as insistent as I can be that they should stay in Calgary for post-secondary. My kids are in grades 11 & 12 right now, but I hope they stay at home for the first year or two, then I'd like to put a down payment on a house for them to live in and rent half out to cover the mortgage. I see going out of town for school as a waste of money that puts you further behind financially at a fairly critical time in life.

Plus, there is the risk of them meeting and pairing up with somebody from a different city. That just makes family get togethers, visiting future grandkids, spending easy/causal time together orders of magnitude harder. Fk that, I want to be able to hang with my kids more than just a couple times a year.

I would like to see them take a year off before university or after, though. Go live in a ski town or resort area or cruise ship or something for a year. Then you get some independence, an away-from-home experience and you get paid to do it.

Originally Posted by puffnstuff

I was repainting my oldest sons room to start it becoming my office as he was pulling out of the driveway on his way to university

I won't be doing that. I'm going to keep their rooms theirs for as long as possible. I don't even have a big house, but I'd like the kids to have a comfortable place to come home to until they're well established in life.

[SilverKast]

YWRGMG...people driving in the dark without their headlights turned on. Super annoying when you're behind them and they have no tail lights because they didn't look to see if their lights are on. Most cars now have automatic headlights, which is great, but just because your dash lights are on doesn't mean your headlights are too.

And I drive a 1998 that has auto headlights so most vehicles out there should already have this feature...

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Hemi-Cuda

I wouldn't go as far as making all post-secondary education free, but I'd be all for standard grants that you could use for any type of post-secondary education, be it college, university, technical schools, or trade apprenticeships

I'd be for making it inexpensive with an expectation that they continue to utilize those skillsets in Canada to benefit our country for at least a minimum period of time (3-5 years).

I believe Singapore does that. They'll pay for top students to go to Harvard (for instance) and as long as they return to Singapore for at least 5-10 years, it's free (or something like that). I think they do the same for students at NUS but the idea extends further than their own country for their cream of the crop. I'm not saying we have to imitate them. I am just saying it's a concept that's already out there and it seems pretty successful so far.

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Interesting perspective. I'm as insistent as I can be that they should stay in Calgary for post-secondary. My kids are in grades 11 & 12 right now, but I hope they stay at home for the first year or two, then I'd like to put a down payment on a house for them to live in and rent half out to cover the mortgage. I see going out of town for school as a waste of money that puts you further behind financially at a fairly critical time in life.

Plus, there is the risk of them meeting and pairing up with somebody from a different city. That just makes family get togethers, visiting future grandkids, spending easy/causal time together orders of magnitude harder. Fk that, I want to be able to hang with my kids more than just a couple times a year.

I would like to see them take a year off before university or after, though. Go live in a ski town or resort area or cruise ship or something for a year. Then you get some independence, an away-from-home experience and you get paid to do it.

My daughter opted to stay in YYC, going to U of C, but it is one of the top programs in Canada.

But i was clear with both my human animals, do not make decisions on what you do where you go based on me and their mom.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by SilverKast

YWRGMG...people driving in the dark without their headlights turned on. Super annoying when you're behind them and they have no tail lights because they didn't look to see if their lights are on. Most cars now have automatic headlights, which is great, but just because your dash lights are on doesn't mean your headlights are too.

And I drive a 1998 that has auto headlights so most vehicles out there should already have this feature...

As surprising as this sounds... they might not. According to this, it wasn't demanded to be standard until September 2021, so it's possible some 2022 models and earlier don't have it.

https://www.caranddriver.com/news/a3...adlight-rules/

I've discovered recently that vehicles built in the last 3 years, some don't even have climate control/auto heat/cool and some don't have cruise control.

I was surprised to find out they're not standard on all vehicles. It seems like they should be and it's probably costing the companies more not having it standard and having to specially program the car computers to have different interfaces to deal with this.

[Geraldsh]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

I'd be for making it inexpensive with an expectation that they continue to utilize those skillsets in Canada to benefit our country for at least a minimum period of time (3-5 years).

I believe Singapore does that. They'll pay for top students to go to Harvard (for instance) and as long as they return to Singapore for at least 5-10 years, it's free (or something like that). I think they do the same for students at NUS but the idea extends further than their own country for their cream of the crop. I'm not saying we have to imitate them. I am just saying it's a concept that's already out there and it seems pretty successful so far.

Our military does that, enlist and get an education in your chosen field with the understanding you will serve the required time.

[CliffFletcher]

Surely the biggest deterrent to going away for university is the expense of living away from home, likely in a city where rents are sky-high. The independence is nice. But at the cost of an extra $10-15k per year on top of tuition, it’s not affordable to most families.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by Geraldsh

Our military does that, enlist and get an education in your chosen field with the understanding you will serve the required time.

This sounds kinda dumb... but after reading that I wonder if in the long term, doing this and then having individuals as standby/volunteers for social services could be a good thing.

Like, if you take trades or get certain degrees, you can get education breaks/compensation for agreeing to be volunteer fire fighters, security volunteers as extensions for situations for peace officers and other needs as needed (ie: natural disasters that may or may not require deployment). Even first aid courses where you can be put on a list to be standby helpers for triage and basic medical tents for events around the city (sporting, music etc.).

That way more people are exposed to behind the scenes emergency services etc. and that understand helps improve the relationship between the population and those services. But also, we'd have a population with more of these types of skillsets we can draw from for certain events that occur (intentional, act of god, random etc.)

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Surely the biggest deterrent to going away for university is the expense of living away from home, likely in a city where rents are sky-high. The independence is nice. But at the cost of an extra $10-15k per year on top of tuition, it’s not affordable to most families.

I want to say it was Sweden or Finland or something that they started a program where students could get discounted rent up to really cheap rates at certain elderly care facilities. This in exchange for regular contributions of time to help taking care of the elderly (about 10-30 hours a week) or something like that. This included stuff like serving meals, chatting with them, helping to do/support special activities, occasional cleaning, sometimes driving etc. to a certain max so that the student still has enough time to study. In lieu of pay, they'd receive a rent reduction based on the time sheet of time they spent doing stuff there. It was an experiment, but it's been quite a while, so I wonder if they've concluded anything yet.

I'd love to see more of that here. Subsidies/job/roles that are catered specifically to students that connect them to more than just the studies they're focusing on. Like a co-op program for odd roles for life, not just a student's specific selected career.

[WhiteTiger]

Originally Posted by DoubleF

This sounds kinda dumb... but after reading that I wonder if in the long term, doing this and then having individuals as standby/volunteers for social services could be a good thing.

Like, if you take trades or get certain degrees, you can get education breaks/compensation for agreeing to be volunteer fire fighters, security volunteers as extensions for situations for peace officers and other needs as needed (ie: natural disasters that may or may not require deployment). Even first aid courses where you can be put on a list to be standby helpers for triage and basic medical tents for events around the city (sporting, music etc.).

That way more people are exposed to behind the scenes emergency services etc. and that understand helps improve the relationship between the population and those services. But also, we'd have a population with more of these types of skillsets we can draw from for certain events that occur (intentional, act of god, random etc.)

This is something I've long wondered if it'd be a solution to one of the biggest problems that are being encountered with PACT-type teams..finding the C part of the team.

I've been thinking that something like the gov't picking up a slice of the tab for training/schooling Counsellors could be offset by mandatory participation in this kind of thing. Not for life, but....some sort of commensurate amount to the funding/loans given sort of thing.

[Sliver]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Surely the biggest deterrent to going away for university is the expense of living away from home, likely in a city where rents are sky-high. The independence is nice. But at the cost of an extra $10-15k per year on top of tuition, it’s not affordable to most families.

Even if it is affordable, it's not necessarily a good use of familial resources. I'd rather that extra $10 - 15k go toward equity in a home or investments than a landlord in fricken Toronto. Way better to graduate with equity in something than rental debt.

[InglewoodFan]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

Surely the biggest deterrent to going away for university is the expense of living away from home, likely in a city where rents are sky-high. The independence is nice. But at the cost of an extra $10-15k per year on top of tuition, it’s not affordable to most families.

Our deal with the kiddos is we will pay for tuition and books for a four year degree or sait or whatever they want, but they need to live at home. The youngest floated UBC but I couldn't fathom how he'd pay his living costs. He wants to do his Masters elsewhere but clearly understands he needs to bust ass to get some funding. But I fully support him pursuing it and will help in small ways if I can.

It's a bit hypocritical of me as I went away to school, U of C kicked me out and I worked and saved for a couple years before I went back. I wanted a bit of an adventure so I applied to schools all over Canada, landing at McMaster.

I paid my full freight between savings, jobs, and loans. And living in Hamilton in the 90s wasn't too expensive to be honest. It was a very positive experience in my life, I gained a lot of perspective and grew up a lot living on my own a long way from home. Even though I came back to Calgary I can more easily identify with the Laurentian Elite. So I've got that going for me.

Sent from my IN2025 using Tapatalk

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Sliver

Even if it is affordable, it's not necessarily a good use of familial resources. I'd rather that extra $10 - 15k go toward equity in a home or investments than a landlord in fricken Toronto. Way better to graduate with equity in something than rental debt.

For a 4-year degree you’re looking at $50k in rent and living expenses. So yeah, that’s a downpayment on a house.

[peter12]

I was up in Calgary last weekend and went up to UCalgary. Holy smokes, it's changed. What a gorgeous campus.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by InglewoodFan

Our deal with the kiddos is we will pay for tuition and books for a four year degree or sait or whatever they want, but they need to live at home. The youngest floated UBC but I couldn't fathom how he'd pay his living costs. He wants to do his Masters elsewhere but clearly understands he needs to bust ass to get some funding. But I fully support him pursuing it and will help in small ways if I can.

It's a bit hypocritical of me as I went away to school, U of C kicked me out and I worked and saved for a couple years before I went back. I wanted a bit of an adventure so I applied to schools all over Canada, landing at McMaster.

I paid my full freight between savings, jobs, and loans. And living in Hamilton in the 90s wasn't too expensive to be honest. It was a very positive experience in my life, I gained a lot of perspective and grew up a lot living on my own a long way from home. Even though I came back to Calgary I can more easily identify with the Laurentian Elite. So I've got that going for me.

Sent from my IN2025 using Tapatalk

Our kids’ RESPs will cover the full freight of a local 4 year degree. We’ve told them anything beyond that they’ll have to borrow. And so they have some tangible skin in the game (40k of debt at age 18 feels pretty distant and abstract), they’ll have to save a portion of it up-front.

We’ll see how it goes. Presumably you can transfer credits towards a degree so a student could go to a local university for the first couple years and then transfer out of city/province.

But regardless, I’m with Silver on encouraging the kids to live away from home at some point in early adulthood to foster independence. And of course have fun.