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Originally Posted by stevennevets
show me that most undergrads can live off of bursaries alone and I'll admit that grad students should be able to live off of a TA-ship alone.
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To emphasize the point: This is only dealing with students demonstrating financial need (since that's who bursaries and TA-ships are designed for).
Given that often times undergrads get OSAP as a means of support, and more often than not a TA-ship prevents graduate students from getting a significant amount of OSAP, it really is an "Apples and Oranges" scenario.
In addition, undergrads are (typically) under age 25, and are far more likely to inherit benefits from their parents (such as dental insurance, or various types of CPP, survivor's benefits, etc). Grad students are frequently too old to receive such benefits from their parents.
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in fact, both of my sisters, after graduating their undergrads, took a couple of years to work, make some money to afford grad school. one is currently attending the other has graduated grad school, both worked and SAVED MONEY in order to afford the expense of more school.
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I'm not going to tell McMaster how to conduct its business, but based on my offer of acceptance alone (and I'm sure I'm no exception) it seemed as though throwing a couple grand at a student to 'reserve' their research is a common practice.
I don't know your sisters or where they've applied/gotten accepted, or what programs they're in (not to mention their financial situation, if they're married and have children, etc.), but research potential has a whole lot to say with how much support you get...regrettably, moreso than teaching ability.
Take home point: As I've said in another thread, "I just don't have enough money right now" is an unacceptable reason for someone not to get an education and go to do their undergraduate studies...not everywhere in the world is as fortunate as we are, but we have OSAP in place (albeit far from a perfect system) to minimize the instances of "I just don't have enough money."
We have the luxury here: if we have the brains and the grades to get accepted, we go.
Why is this all of a sudden different for grad students? It really shouldn't be...if we have the brains and demonstrate the potential, we go. And since the burden doesn't fall on OSAP, it falls on McMaster.
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we all understand that as grad students you have the added finacial burden of undergrad debts, but I have never seen anywhere that McMaster promised grad students financial security, meaning basically a free education, where all the money comes from bursaries and TA-ships and goes straight back to Mac.
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That's because we sign contracts and those typically aren't publicized...my tuition is completely covered by my TA-ship, as per my agreement with McMaster. Quite frankly, if Mac didn't agree to give me enough financial support to at least fully pay my tuition,
I would have gone somewhere that did. Mac understood this, and so they roped me in.
U of T for instance, offered me more than double what McMaster did, in my offer of acceptance.