LOL, not that I have an art history degree, but who the eff died and made you God of all that matters and you get to decide what degrees "serve no purpose" in 2023? :failed:

canada doesn't do loan forgiveness, but for years there have been a tuition freeze from what i recall.

in essence i see this as a partial student loan relief program.
it enabled me to take loans to get an education, and owe a small debt, vs enormous debt similar to what is seen in the US.

i was able to pay it off asap and then start saving for my future (eg down payment for a home)

Wouldn't it be ideal for canada if people could become doctors without having rich parents? Like, a society where people have upward mobility based on their merits, skills and intelligence, instead of that being a small portion of the recipe? Seems like a pretty obvious way to get people doing what they are good at.

I had to stop by and visit a couple at their $4M house the other day, they're both doctors and good on them! However, they sat there going on about handouts from the government and lazy people and hard work being a lacking quality of most people.

I don't know about the guy, but I know the girl went to UBC and her dad bought her a condo at UBC to live in while she attended there. As a bonus, by the time she finished she was able to sell it for double what her dad bought it for and he told her not to worry about paying any of it back to him as a graduation present (nevermind that he paid for all her schooling and living expenses and a car too).

So much hard work, no handouts from the government :)

"No handouts for you" is what they mean when they say that.

How about instead of giving out $200 for groceries which is A) useless and B) just furthers these inflationary habits. Giving out $200 cheques tricks dumb people into thinking the govt cares about them.

How about turd and co go after the Loblaws, Telus, etc. who are gouging the consumer to the point of eating cat foot?

Just like the conservatives, the Libs work for corporations. That's why big money in politics guarantees corruption. Campaign funding should be limited, equal, and taxpayer funded among all parties. No donations, no lobbying, no advantages that are granted by helping any corporate donor.

It would just be an expensive way to wind up working as a barista. Nothing wrong with being a barista but there’s no need to get in 6 figures of debt and 4 years of life for it. Better off becoming a nurse/accountant/plumber/programmer etc. Something that will actually have a better probability of a relevant in-demand job at the end.

On the macro societal level, sbufid is right ... not giving a youth the appropriate career/vocation for a young person to fill an occupational need in country is not good. But on an individual level, you never know, someone could go through University for basket weaving and come out and be successful in a totally different career because he/she learned the art of learning, has good relational IQ, and can transfer skills.

The alternative is you have a country which filters you at age 16 with aptitiude tests and categorize you as trade or University level potential and relegate you to that. That's called China. No or little student debt, State subsidized higher education.

Which of the two do you prefer?

There are many places that have state subsidized education, or even free post secondary which are infinitely more effective than our system. Those systems do weed out people who are going to be career students or who are not intelligent enough to make it.

At some point you kind of have to force people into being an effective cog in the work force as opposed to leaching off the governments tit.

The problem now is even in a decent trade etc. you have a hard time earning enough to live comfortably. It’s that same old straddle the welfare line mentality. Why work 50% harder for 20% more income. Just ride the freebie train, there’s more than enough of it in Canada.

You had me in the first half there Honda, thinking you were gonna put together an a+ post but you just had to go to the "welfare recipients make as much as workers" angle at the end lol.

Well it’s not so much the welfare state but moreso the incentive to do better I guess lol

Like for myself, to make another 30-50k I’d have to fucking bust my ass and likely work twice as hard, but that extra 50k would not improve my quality of life that much

Even for business owners it’s such a thin line. My wife works for a little boutique consulting firm that’s owned by her life long friend. They have like 10-12 employees. The owner is under incredible stress, is starting a family, works 12-14 hour days etc.

She could not have a 12-14 person business and do consulting work all by herself and likely make $150-300 an hour with very little overhead. But the chase of that bigger, self sustaining money is there. But as with any business, it’s a grind just to keep your head above water. And the govt. would rather help a Loblaws, bombardier, etc. than give any sliver of hope to small business operators.

I'm curious how many people end up working in exactly what they went to uni for. For some reason I know a lot of people that ended up with biology/chemistry degrees and only a couple of them actually work in the field. One became a teacher, one is in accounting, another is in sales, etc. Similar deal with people who went into engineering.

Look man, if an additional 50K a year makes no meaningful difference in your quality of life, then you are far better off than literally mostly everyone - and anything you say about how fucking hard it is to live here loses any credibility.

As for your wife's friend, while I'm not negating any stress she may feel running a business with employees, isn't really the same struggle most people are facing right now. "Keeping your head above water" doesn't really mean what you think it is, when you're standing in a pool that's 4 feet deep. The families struggling to stay afloat are the ones any "handouts" are supposed to help.

Oh, but wait, it's actually their fault because they all god art major degrees, my bad. I guess by that logic your wife's boss should also have chosen a different career since people's stress are all self-inflicted.

...and, hang on, you want the government to give handouts to your wife's boss? wtf?

I agree completely with all this.

But on the lowest of low levels... welfare and other basic government fundamentals might be a deterrant from trying to do better in Regina or Thunder Bay... most of the country though, there's zero chance any of us could survive even a week on what's handed out. In that way, it's supposed to be giving a boost, not providing a place to remain indefinitely.

Unfortunately it's only as good as other programs and societal factors around it... of which they are sorely lacking.

While Honda is looking at it through a pretty myopic viewpoint, I totally get what he's saying. As a fairly well to do middle class person, even with a 50k increase in our yearly income, we'd really only be able to go back to the way we were living in 2019. That's not that good of motivation to work harder.
If I got a 20k raise tomorrow it's gonna cover my extra food bills and bank CEO bonuses I'm paying for with the increased interest rates. Super stoked about that.

many of my engineering colleagues are not doing what they specialized in school - many still stay in the field of engineering though. even to that extent, many get in to management, business development etc where there is little to no engineering involved.

i'm the same, 3 years of design in tech i changed industries, and changed gears again
now i do zero technical work but my education / experience helps me in my role so i wouldn't call my education a waste

One more thing to mention about the fucked up economic policies of the governments almost world wide at this point.
Left leaning governments are fucking the middle class by widening the gap to upper class, but helping lower class by bringing them up closer to the middle.
Right wing governments are fucking the lower class while still widening the middle class gap to upper, to make middle class feel better about themselves in comparison to those worse off.
An ACTUAL solution is to close the gap on both sides of the middle class, but they are far too cowardly, and also handcuffed by globalization that has countries racing to the bottom in hopes of catching a billionaire cumshot.
It's fucking pathetic, and it's even dumber when poor people defend it.

What he's saying is that that extra 50K comes with an additional 50% impact on stress, hours worked, etc, that has to be factored in that "quality of life" discussion.

My region manager has been floating the idea of making me division manager (some casual mention he put out there, he was like "we could see you in a division manager role).

Seeing what the last division manager went through, I don't know if I want the stress of that role, unless it comes with at minimum a doubling of my current salary (which has been more than comfortable enough for me so far)

I was just in this situation myself... take on a position doing exactly what I do now, but with managing 6 people (I manage nobody right now) for 30% more salary... I said forget it... not worth it.

Maybe if I was like 25-30 years old, I could see how it might be a bridge to something even bigger... but I'm much older than that and it wasn't going to be a bridge to anywhere except stroke or heart disease lol

The tone of your post feels like it’s making assumptions people haven’t worked incredibly hard for what they already have.

Paid for all my schooling myself, paid for my first place myself, etc. etc. I’d accept I’m a benefactor of timing but that’s about it.

An extra 50k a year would make my life slightly more comfortable but it’s not like I’d be buying a new BMW. I’ve made more equity in my home in the last 6 year than I would have made with that extra 50k over 2 decades. I’m still not rich, not even close.

I never said anything about any business getting a hand out, I was saying the stress of trying to make a business work likely isn’t worth that extra bit of money you may or may not make and all the risk involved in that. Although I do think small business is a far better place to hand out money than these massive corpos in the back pocket of the govt.

They want to make you a Salary position?

A year and a half of my wife in BC Gov and she's already advanced 3 grid levels, she's probably going to go one more level up by the end of this year (she's already making 20% more than she made after 15 years in her old job)
Her uppers are already saying "You'll be Band (management) level in no time".

She's like "but I like my flex days, and signing off at 4:30", which she would lose, for all of like a maximum of 15% pay increase. No thanks.

$50K a yr more = $33K take home ... and if you are already in higher echelon, it might be more tax and less take home. So yah, once you have a home, 2 cars, kids all grown up, etc. quality of life >>> than more money to buy more shit.

I was thinking similarly to you in regards to 50k, even 100k extra isn’t going to change my lifestyle. I think that is just because of home prices honestly. Would my lifestyle change? No. Would I buy a new car? No. May I get a bigger mortgage? Likely.

The whole thing is kind of fucked. Until we can all reach that personal goal of an adequate “house,” you’re just dumping more and more into the home and your lifestyle stays stagnant. Saying that, if I had my goa home, I’d probably just be pumping it into a second home as that’s this day and ages form of investment.

But the other guy made a great point. That just means we are in a state of comfort already. You have what you need from a life necessities aspect already. You’re not thinking how am I going to pay for my kids next meal, or some new shoes for gym class. You’ve got the basics.

It was actually a position with Surrey Police, but pretty much the same duties I currently do... so after that last vote I am double glad I didn't take it