Funny you say that.
I go around saying to people that in Canadia, yada yada.
Fair enough, but there is a huge difference between stuffing a family of 7 into one or two bedrooms vs. a family of 3-4 (2 parents and 1 or 2 children) living in a two bedroom house or apartment. A backyard is nice, but so is a park and playground within walking distance.
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It’s a different culture now. That’s all I can say. There used to be a very generous thing called a “Canada scholarship” given to STEM kids in Canada. Came in a nice folder (I have mine). Most of us in our class lost ours - remember I said median was around 68. We would never dream of arguing for grades to keep the $. This was when the scholarship was for all 4 years and essentially meant ZERO tuition.
Med school in Canada especially in Ontario has always been UBER competitive. Premed at U of Toronto is rife with backstabbing stories. Partly because medical school in Canada is still a huge bargain compared to U.S. rates and Canadian trained physicians don’t have to repeat residencies for many specialities in the U.S. Even back in ancient history, there were stories of kids hiding info about labs or stealing submitted tests or assignments from cubbies.
You know, it’s just weird how the 1st generation to live in burbs really wanted to move away from that poverty. Again, I don’t agree, but some of that generation wanted to have their OWN swing sets in their giant backyards as opposed to a SHARED playground.
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That’s fine. That’s what natives of my generation say. Canadia.
It helps that the most desired / prestigious universities in Canada are huge publics located in large population centres.
However, students from the sparsely populated parts of Canada need to live at or near the school since commuting from northern BC / ON / QC to UBC / UToronto / McGill is not practical.
Wow, go to a work meeting and come back to a different world!
Forget credential creep-- let’s talk lifestyle creep! Blue Ash is what in some parts of the country would be called an “aspirational suburb”, as in- once we save our money, make some bucks selling our current, perfectly fine home, we can buy on a cul de sac in Blue Ash…
Honestly, do you really think that there are NO nice houses in Cincinnati proper? And forget about the HS teacher married to the social worker (both with master’s degrees). Do you really think that every fire-fighter or police officer is living in a shack and doesn’t care about good public schools???
Yikes. But forget Cincinnati since you’ve all made my point. EVERYONE has to aspire to a California type lifestyle, a California public university, and two or three bedrooms in a nice condo development would be a mark of shame. And anyone buying a “starter home” in Blue Ash for 399K has likely rejected 20 perfectly lovely starter homes in other parts of Hamilton County- which is their prerogative- but Atherton is not the entire state of California; Winnetka and Lake Forest are not Chicago; Scarsdale and Chappaqua are not the entire state of NY.
Believe it or not there are affordable places to live in America; not every nurse in America is carrying a staggering debt loan because he or she had to attend pricey U for a BSN; and yes, there are kids in America who are happy with B’s and the occasional A because where they live, that means they can attend a public U and get a reasonable job when they graduate.
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Yeah, in more ways than one, the people who ACTUALLY populate the true north no matter how sparsely, get shafted.
But the population is sparse, so fewer votes, fewer seats in Parliament, etc.
They can’t get cheap good quality tertiary education within commuting distance, and they certainly WON’T get good treatment for many medical emergencies.
There’s huge lifestyle creep and every generation thus far is guilty of it. Maybe not this one.
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I think there is a big cultural difference in that going away for school is just less of a thing.
There is less emphasis on rankings/prestige, which is probably a consequence of there being less perceived difference among the schools (in terms of quality of education and career or 2nd degree ramifications).
Kids from high school in Halifax (even ones at the very top of their class) are much more likely to go to Dal or SMU than McGill or UofT, kids from Edmonton are much more likely to go to U ofA than UBC, etc.
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It has changed a bit. Back in the day, only people in the know applied to US colleges. Now EVERY TOP student (or sure seems like it) knows to shotgun T20 privates in the U.S. because need blind, generous FA. From Halifax to Vancouver. From Beijing to New Delhi. You get the drift.
But in general yes, they might shotgun HYPSM but otherwise would not pay for room and board.
Also, most Canadian schools have nowhere close to enough housing to house the entire 1st year, let alone all 4 years.
I spent a lot of time IRL telling Americans that McGill is a regular old state public school with large classes.
In my class of 80 in a Southern Ontario uni, we had 1 missionary kid (so no fixed abode), 5-6 Montrealers. Zero people from a prairie province or BC. Zero maritimes. One kid came over from New Brunswick in 3rd year but quickly went back after the brutal reality of our harsh grading policies.
I’m not sure either. How do the other countries manage to keep those jobs filled? Is it perhaps part of the reason why they manage to keep their overall healthcare cost well below ours?
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I can only speak for Canada and the U.K.
Canada used to have a pretty fast and efficient system for immigrants with nursing degrees, preferably those under 40. Point-based system. No employer sponsorship required. The whole family can come.
I know many families with nurse moms who immigrated from Asia and to a lesser extent, Eastern Europe, from the 60s through the 80s. As cheap as Canadian undergrad tuition was, those grads were already trained with zero debt and took on most of the less desirable nursing jobs. I don’t know if that is still the case.
The UK also imports large numbers of nurses.
As to why the cost is different, that isn’t this forum but a few factors are:
- savings from having nationalized healthcare - cheaper drugs, US bears the brunt of R&D and the commensurate recouping of those costs.
- more effective gatekeeping by MDs to specialists. I don’t (knock wood) have any major health problems but I see 5 specialists! Middle aged sports injury - ortho. Don’t love my cholesterol numbers - cardiologist. And various others for unrealized problems. So that doesn’t happen in Canada. No kid sees a pediatrician unless they suffered some serious malady when younger or were born prematurely or some X factor.
The rumor is that they’ve even curtailed physicals now because evidence shows that they are useless in moving the needle on results. - evidence-based medicine.
- larger proportion of the population are immigrants. Immigrants are healthier than native-born Canadians.
I assume they were trained on the jobs, rather than with fancy college nursing degrees, in the countries where they came from, correct?
No, I meant that nursing school (at least back then) was very cheap in Asia/Europe (free in Communist Europe!) and nursing was more vocational (as you say). I don’t remember anyone graduating from an Asian 4-year university program or European equivalent.
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Right. That’s what I meant. Nursing was more vocational nearly everywhere else in the world. No need for a 4-year college degree. A graduate degree in nursing was probably unheard of.
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Of course there are affordable places to live - my divorced SIL makes a pretty modest salary as a teacher in Louisiana yet lives in a nice single family house in a good suburb. Her neighbors are a mix of skilled tradespeople, teachers and white collar professionals. Her kids don’t seem stressed - one is an apprentice plumber (making excellent $$) and the other is headed to a LA public college next year. I think many folks on CC have a very insular view of American life - not everyone is living in affluent suburb where homes are $900k+ and parents are fixated on getting junior into a prestigious college.
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Would it be more accurate to say that:
- there is an arms race/student perfectionism? The evidence being the kids with cancer-curing level ECs and double digit APs when this was not heretofore the case?
With the caveat that this is NOT everywhere and everyone. Just some people and most of those in high COL areas.
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That many parents do not enable it with mental health concerns, etc. but maybe it’s just in the water of $$$ neighborhoods anyway.
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That some of the drive for grades at all levels is due to credential creep in addition to COL concerns?
@1NJParent, back to those nurses. I haven’t met any 2nd generation nurses in Canada (children of aforementioned immigrants). I have heard anecdotally of 2nd generation nurses in the U.S. with the baby nurses being VERY savvy about what to do.
- So yes, these baby nurses go to the cheapest school they can find.
- If they need to upgrade their skills, find a hospital system that will pay.
- jump from job to job to get signing bonuses
- do travel nursing - work very hard 6 months of the year and nothing for the rest. Have the spouse work remotely (this is a Covid thing) to avoid separation. Make $$$.
- if they can’t stand hospital work, go into specialist stuff. One is a derm nurse/NP and makes $$$ without drudgery.
My impression is that blood cholesterol issues are so common in the US that every primary care (general / internal / family) physician is very familiar with them, so why would a cardiologist be needed if that were the main issue (as opposed to more unusual cardiology problems)?
In the US, pediatricians are the usual primary care physicians for kids, not additional specialists beyond a regular primary care physician (as opposed to pediatric cardiologists, etc.). They also are not paid higher than other primary care physicians.
However, US physicians often carry high educational debt burdens compared to those with medical education in other countries.
This is also hinted at in the US. For example, US socialized insurance for the elderly (Medicare) covers annual wellness visits, and says that “The yearly “Wellness” visit isn’t a physical exam.” But that was not a popular concept when it came up in some other thread in these forums.
I don’t need a specialist, but I WANT one just because. And in doctor-saturated NYC, I can get one (actually I have 2) - maybe a little hypochondriac here. My point is I can get one. And that drives up the costs. Because maybe I shouldn’t be able to see one so easily.
Oh, ok. I didn’t know peds were not specialists here. My Canadian friends are super jealous when I mention the kids see peds. They are considered specialists there.
Very true about debt. Canadian medical schools are a pittance.