<p>I'm an American undergrad who plans to graduate next year and I'm starting to look at grad school options. How easy/hard is it to secure decent financial aid for grad school? I plan to do whatever it takes to support myself in grad school (TAships, work-study, etc) but since I am going to undergrad on the cheap, my parents have offered to help me out. </p>
<p>They are convinced that McGill for grad school would be several times more expensive than a school in the US because my dad "read" (in quotes because I think he was exaggerating) that McGill doesn't give financial aid to international students and that you can't get a loan if you go to college out of the U.S. He also "read" that the cost of living in Montr</p>
<p>Your dad needs to improve his reading comprehension. McGill awards merit scholarships to Americans and other international students at the undergraduate level. There are no need based grants for Americans though. Stafford loans can be used at McGill. At the graduate level, funding is the same as at US schools: Fellowships and teaching and research assistantships are awarded to students by department.</p>
<p>The cost of living in Montreal is among the lowest in North America for major cities, a hell of a lot cheaper than Boston, for example. </p>
<p>I concur with tomofboston on Montreal’s low cost of living: it is considerably cheaper than cities like Boston, Chicago, NYC, Toronto or Vancouver. Expect to pay about $500 to $800 per month for a one-bedroom apartment (the price varies considerably by location with apartments across the street from McGill being the priciest and those farthest away the least expensive). My son pays $500 for his third of a $1500/month three-bedroom that is a 5-minute walk from McGill and right by several bus routes and close to a metro station. He could have reduced that to around $350/month if he were willing to take public transport to McGill. The economic boom that hit many North American cities in the decades preceding 2008 largely bypassed Montreal, and that has helped keep it an affordable city (note: Montreal is not in a state of decline the way that Detroit, Cleveland and most of the US rustbelt is; rather Montreal has had much slower growth than places like Toronto, Vancouver, and Calgary).</p>
<p>Canadian universities are a good deal (and incredibly good deals for Canadians, especially given the almost uniformly high quality of undergraduate education in Canada–almost all universities in Canada would rank well above the US average). </p>
<p>Grad studies, in particular, are a good deal for international students. In Canada, there is usually considerably more funding for international grad students than there is for international undergrads. Depending on what you are studying as a graduate student, you may get an education at McGill comparable to that of the best in the world. In general, Canadian schools are somewhat impersonal at the undergrad level (many US students complain about the lack of handholding and about the high grading standards), but much better at the graduate level.</p>