[Non-US] News That Makes You laugh/cry/neither...

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Wed May 23, 2012 5:51 pm

While I agree that the government response to the protests has been outrageously bad, I don't have that much sympathy for the students protesting. I'm in BC, and their yearly tuition is currently a little less than my tuition for one semester. Maybe I'm being horribly ripped off, but even after the full tuition increase they'll be paying less than me.

I have even less sympathy for the students that stormed into classrooms and kicked out other students that weren't protesting. That was definitely a step too far. On the other hand, the provincial government's reaction has been completely over the top. The whole situation is just a mess.

EDIT: Lago, this one's not the Prime Minister's fault. It's Quebec's provincial government that wants to raise tuition, so the increase will only apply to Quebec. Quebec currently has very low tuition prices, so the 82% raise shouldn't hit them nearly as badly as it would in most other places in North America. It's also spread out over a few years, so people whole are already at university will miss the worst of it.

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Wed May 23, 2012 5:54 pm

See, here in the US of A tuition only goes up by 5-15% each and every year for three decades while inflation is only ~2% and real wages for the bottom 99.9% are pretty close to flat. The result is the same effective locking the unwashed masses out of bettering themselves and/or into lifetimes of debt-slavery, but it makes for fewer headlines and protests.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Wed May 23, 2012 7:17 pm

Don't forget the simultaneous pokes and jabs at the "elite" and the glorification of the down-home blue collar peeps.

See... The hooray-ignorance propaganda campaign spread by conservative media helps the belief that education and intelligence are no-bad-wrong sprout and flower. The gradual price increase becomes the final justification to not go to college - in addition to being corrupting and bad for your brain, it's just too damned expensive.

This, of course, just does everything to reaffirm that the liberal elite remains elite and the country is too stupid to know otherwise.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Wed May 23, 2012 7:29 pm

rampaging-poet wrote:While I agree that the government response to the protests has been outrageously bad, I don't have that much sympathy for the students protesting. I'm in BC, and their yearly tuition is currently a little less than my tuition for one semester. Maybe I'm being horribly ripped off, but even after the full tuition increase they'll be paying less than me.

Where are you going in BC? I looked at UBC for their MLS program, and the cost was negligible, especially compared to institutions in the states and elsewhere in Canada. It was literally a quarter of the cost of the other schools I was considering.

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Wed May 23, 2012 10:37 pm

I am a student at the University of Victoria. A full course load is five courses per semester, each course is 1.5 credits, and each credit costs $330. That works out to a total of $2475 each semester before the gym fee, the bus pass, and other assorted charges. On top of that, engineering courses (including computer science) cost nearly twice as much per course.

Maybe I've misinterpreted these tuition fees, but the articles I've read lead me to believe that the current tuition amounts listed for Quebec cover a year of courses and the other fees for the year. Even neglecting other fees, I still pay more for one semester of courses than they do for a year. That said, I haven't looked into the tuition at other universities here.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Thu May 24, 2012 4:27 am

I just checked the Concordia University Tuition Calculator, and a Quebec Resident taking 15 credits a term for 2 terms in the Engineering faculty would pay $1,943.97 for the first term and $2007.05 for the second. That seems to be less than you're paying, but not amazingly so. Note that at Concordia, a class is three credits, not one and a half, so we're doing a five class to five class comparison there.

Note that if tuition rises by 82%, it will be significantly more than you pay.

-Username17

rampaging-poet · Post by **rampaging-poet** » Thu May 24, 2012 4:10 pm

I see. The articles I had read on the subject must have confused the cost for a year and the cost for a semester. The complaints make more sense now. Lack of sympathy officially withdrawn.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu May 24, 2012 4:23 pm

It should be anyway- your costs are extremely low compared to most institutions of higher education in the US and Canada. I know bottom tier community colleges that charge more than that. Not sure how U Vic rates as far as schools go, but you are paying somewhere between 25% to 50% of the cost of the average mid-tier, state-supported university. And about 5-10% of of the top-tier schools.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Thu May 24, 2012 4:25 pm

Voss wrote:It should be anyway- your costs are extremely low compared to most institutions of higher education in the US and Canada.

So fucking what?

name_here · Post by **name_here** » Thu May 24, 2012 4:35 pm

Two thousand dollars? That is it?

I was looking at 30,000 a year for an in-state school, with federal aid totalling loans of 5K a year.

If I ever have kids, I am so making them go to university in Canada.

erik · Post by **erik** » Thu May 24, 2012 5:29 pm

name_here wrote:Two thousand dollars? That is it?

I was looking at 30,000 a year for an in-state school, with federal aid totalling loans of 5K a year.

If I ever have kids, I am so making them go to university in Canada.

Seconded. The private highschools grade schools around here are way more than those university costs. Hell, I think some preschools are comparable in cost to those colleges (4k/yr). If I could send my kids to 4 years of college for whatever 20k passes for come inflation 15 years from now, that would make me happy.

Someday I need to have a serious talk with family about moving to Canada. Gonna suck selling houses, but if we can stomach that, then hoo-rah.

Voss · Post by **Voss** » Thu May 24, 2012 6:03 pm

Lago PARANOIA wrote:
Voss wrote:It should be anyway- your costs are extremely low compared to most institutions of higher education in the US and Canada.
So fucking what?

2K a semester is literally doable on a part time, minimum wage job. It is rather a big deal that a university like this is actually a possibility for people.

I'm not sure what to tell you if you don't know that the costs of higher education are literally breaking people and are an insurmountable barrier for people in low income brackets.

sabs · Post by **sabs** » Thu May 24, 2012 7:10 pm

The US priority on making old people rich at the expense of young people, is starting to really catch up. We're about to get hit with the boom swinging back, and fro some reason, no one remembers we're on a ship with a boom.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Sat May 26, 2012 7:42 pm

Holy shit, this was written in 1992!

-Username17

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Sat May 26, 2012 8:10 pm

The best kind of parody is the kind that doesn't know what it's parodying but turns out to be dead-on accurate anyway.

K · Post by K » Mon Sep 10, 2012 9:03 am

Brits plan to stop health and safety inspections.

So, I guess no one planning to go to England should eat the food, especially from bars which will no longer get any health or safety inspections.

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Mon Sep 10, 2012 9:36 am

And apparently they're also easing construction regulations, so I'd suggest not entering any building.

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Sep 10, 2012 7:02 pm

K wrote:Brits plan to stop health and safety inspections.

So, I guess no one planning to go to England should eat the food, especially from bars which will no longer get any health or safety inspections.

Jeremy Clarkson will approve of that . .

In other News, Greece seems to think it has found a way out of being broke:
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english2010/w ... 688901.htm

erik · Post by **erik** » Mon Sep 10, 2012 7:16 pm

*cough* story more than a year and a half old...

Stahlseele · Post by **Stahlseele** » Mon Sep 10, 2012 7:35 pm

*nods*
i just heard of this today though <.<

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Tue Sep 11, 2012 5:34 pm

K wrote:Brits plan to stop health and safety inspections.

So, I guess no one planning to go to England should eat the food, especially from bars which will no longer get any health or safety inspections.

Now that we don't clean the grease traps, the economy can double every twenty minutes!

No wait, that's E. Coli.

-Username17

DrPraetor · Post by **DrPraetor** » Tue Sep 11, 2012 7:22 pm

FrankTrollman wrote:
K wrote:Brits plan to stop health and safety inspections.

So, I guess no one planning to go to England should eat the food, especially from bars which will no longer get any health or safety inspections.
Now that we don't clean the grease traps, the economy can double every twenty minutes!

No wait, that's E. Coli.

-Username17

This is more leftist propaganda, trying to tie the economic disaster in England to the policy that HM's government has actually pursued. It's deeply dishonest for two reasons:
1) The species name isn't capitalized, that should be E. coli.
2) E. coli only doubles every 20 minutes under ideal lab conditions. In the grease traps, it's probably going to be half an hour or even forty five minutes.

Once stripped of these gross distortions, we see that austerity has worked, and will continue to work even more better in future, as the free market has the capital to respond to the coming mutant bacteria driven zombie plague.

Whatever · Post by **Whatever** » Thu Nov 08, 2012 5:36 pm

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihd7ofrwQX0

Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard has hit back at Opposition Leader Tony Abbott's call for Peter Slipper to be removed as Speaker, attacking Mr Abbott as a misogynist.

That description understates the intensity of the insults in question. This is brilliant stuff. It's like watching a TGD discussion in real life.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Tue Jan 29, 2013 9:51 pm

Israel "vaccinated" Ethiopian Jewish immigrants with Depo-Provera.

Lago PARANOIA · Post by **Lago PARANOIA** » Wed Jun 19, 2013 12:49 am

Do we have any Brazilian Denners in here?

And if we do, what's going on over there?