Quote Originally Posted by bubba
Colin, it's a case of what goes around comes around. Doing that was considered obsolete in the US too, but what with the economic situation it's back in favor again.When I was growing up the rule was a rich man goes to college and a poor man goes to work. I left high school in my junior year to go to work.
The main difference there, is that here in BC we are in the middle of an economic boom. You almost need a degree before you apply working at Subway these days. One of the other issues in BC is that a large group of the population has gone on to post secondary education and upped the standard. I met with numerous roadblocks due to my lack of formal education when I first tried to get out of the shipping/receiving business. With the increase in university students and degrees hitting the workforce, the major cities in BC have really taking a nose down approach at blue collar workers in the past decade. We are just now starting to see that these people will soon be in short supply, and now the government and industry is putting alot of effort into training tradespeople. As it stands right now (especially with the Olympics coming in 4+ years) if you have a trade ticket you can almost name your price.

Canada also differs from the US in that our post secondary education may be funded differently. BC has some of the higher tuition fees right now, but they have not been raised in some time. With the number of post secondary facilities in BC (universities, trade schools, colleges) it is within almost everyone's grasp to obtain further education. I was one of the few people I know that did not go back to school right away. However I have taken several business courses since and may actually go back to school part time in the near future. In my mind education is not a human right (after all how many people don't have the opportunity to get a basic education), but it is a privelige I hope to take further advantage off in my life.

Slightly off topic, but my oldest nephew (on my wife's side) is a US citizen. When he applied to go to University in the US instead of Canada, one of the things that suprised us all was that when he signed for a student loan, part of the deal was that he was consenting to a draft should there every be one. Whether this is an isolated example or not, I am not sure.