Current Events > Canadian student flies to college every week instead of paying rent. Saves money

(+) Yeah! (+)

Flies twice a week from Calgary to Vancouver:

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/f/f0a85f0c.jpg

How does he save money?

https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/forum/c/cf3d5d64.jpg

https://bc.ctvnews.ca/ubc-student-commutes-from-calgary-cheaper-than-paying-vancouver-rent-1.6759116

Vancouvers sky-high rental prices have forced many residents to find creative ways to be able to afford to live in the city.
Turning to creativity is exactly what Tim Chen did to avoid paying rent in Vancouver.
For Chen, commuting to class looks very different, as a final year arts student at the University of British Columbia.
"I thought, why don't I just stay at Calgary and then just fly here, its like a one-hour flight, thats like the same as taking a bus, he said.

Chen is originally from Calgary. He had previously been living in Vancouver while studying at UBC, but gave up his rental unit while he went on vacation during the fall.
When he returned, he was met with sticker shock.
"When I checked the house price I thought, oh shoot, there was a big increase!" he said. I need to pay like $2,500 for the rent, so I don't feel like it's viable."
He began looking at the price of flights from Calgary to Vancouver and realized they were about $150 round trip.
He takes two classes per week at the university.
In total hell pay about $1,200 for the flights per month while he lives at home with his parents in Calgary. Ultimately, it's much cheaper than the average price of a one-bedroom apartment in Vancouver, which sits at about $2,100.
"I've got three hours of class in total, after the class, I go back to the bus and go back to the airport!" Chen said.
Vancouver continues to lead the way as Canadas most expensive city for renters. But, finding a place to rent is even more difficult with the 0.9 per cent vacancy in the city.
Chen plans to fly to UBC for his two classes until the end of the academic year, when he graduates.

https://www.reddit.com/r/Damnthatsinteresting/comments/1atodpu/a_student_from_canada_gets_to_his_studies_by/

What's he doing for temporary accommodation during the week?

I assume 8 trips only, over a month, means he's arriving on a Monday and leaving on a Friday, or whichever day his last class is

Edit - oh missed the round trip part of the post... This raises another question about how he only needs to visit the college 8 days a month

Tbh I'm surprised that UBC couldn't find an distance learning option for his final class.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

What's he doing for temporary accommodation during the week?

I assume 8 trips only, over a month, means he's arriving on a Monday and leaving on a Friday, or whichever day his last class is

Edit - oh missed the round trip part of the post

I know that you read the article and figured it out, but UBC actually has some affordable hotel options if he ever needs to stay, a hotels are approx $100 a night and they have hostels too

WingsOfParsimony

Not surprising at all as someone who's spent half his life in BC.

BC housing costs are California levels of insanity, and Alberta, despite it's faults, has way more affordable options. Add in the frequent flyer shit that's available nowadays and it's a no brainer.

Hell if it wasn't for Marlaina's insane government and the miserable cold I'd consider Alberta myself.

[LFAQs-redacted-quote]


More of a provincial and municipality issue, regarding home building and zoning. The provincial government is trying to improve and has implemented quotas for munipalities to meet.

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Trudeau is an idiot and the country needs to move on from him, but for once this isn't actually his fault.

Real estate prices were god awful in BC long before he came along.

I remember a similar story with a DC intern commuting to North Caroline(?) from a couple years ago.

haloiscoolisbak posted...

What's he doing for temporary accommodation during the week?

I assume 8 trips only, over a month, means he's arriving on a Monday and leaving on a Friday, or whichever day his last class is

Edit - oh missed the round trip part of the post... This raises another question about how he only needs to visit the college 8 days a month

There is no question. You just schedule all of your classes two days a week.

Ice Cube basically did the same thing as NWA was starting out

I mean, it's largely b/c he's living w/ his parents for free. Even in Calgary, the rent is still going to be several hundred a month at least, right? So this is basically just being a commuter, super long distance edition. Disingenuous to compare Vancouver rental prices to just the airfare w/o rental costs in Calgary.

Makes me wonder if school scheduling allowed for him to stack his two days a week of classes one after the other, if a one night hotel stay and only 1 round trip airfare would be cheaper than 2 round trips. I'd certainly prefer less long distance traveling, even if it's the same price...

haloiscoolisbak posted...

Edit - oh missed the round trip part of the post... This raises another question about how he only needs to visit the college 8 days a month

Some classes, especially higher level ones, offer single day 3 hour slugfests once per week instead of 1 hr 3x a week. Plenty of my 400-level engineering classes were like that, and a lot were late afternoon/evening b/c it was catering towards people working full time and going to school after work.

WingsOfGood posted...

arts student

oof

sfcalimari posted...

oof

Not an oof at UBC.

It's basically the Canadian equivalent of an Ivy League. Your degree could be in philosophy and someone would hire you for an overpaid position somewhere.

electricbugs2 posted...

Not an oof at UBC.

It's basically the Canadian equivalent of an Ivy League. Your degree could be in philosophy and someone would hire you for an overpaid position somewhere.

Must be nice having the intelligence to get a degree

Dark_Arbron posted...

Must be nice having the intelligence to get a degree

My best friend is currently a junior there for electrical engineering.

Can't say I envy him too much. He's constantly getting waxed by 10 hour online assignments and all night studying. UBC is no joke. If the University of Toronto is our Harvard, UBC is our Yale.