Apparently many other college students are leaving the United States and going to Canada.

The Canadian Embassy reports that as many as 10,000 American students are being educated in Canada this year, a three-fold increase from a decade ago.

I’m going to graduate school in Canada for several main reasons: I can work at a major global research institution (I could do this in the US too however), I can live in an area that reduces my dependence on a personal motor vehicle, it is affordable.

Everything else is just a bonus: I like hockey, the Olympics are coming to Vancouver, things are just ever so slightly more laid back here, etc… the list goes on and on.

I can talk a long time about why I think Canada is a great choice for graduate school, however it seems that many other have the same opinion. I’m a little disillusioned with college in the US though. We have to get degrees to get decent jobs, but those degrees saddle us with overwhelming debt that ties us to specific jobs for long periods of time.

When talking with a friend for Germany, he thought my sub $2000/semester tuition in Canada  was way too expensive. In Germany, he told me he paid a few hundred Euro’s per term for an engineering degree… and everyone knows the reputation of German engineers.