Why don't we hear more talk about this school? With a zillion undergrad and grad degree programs you'd think it would come up more often. Athabasca University. Open. Online. Everywhere. : Athabasca University
It's a public university in Alberta, provincially recognized, member of AUCC and I believe also regionally accredited. In short, it's as legitimate as they come. It used to be mentioned more often for its flexible 90 credit hour General Studies BA. I kind of feel that American offerings eclipsed Athabasca in flexibility (unless you want that 90-hour degree).
I'd love to praise it, and I looked at it very early on in my search for doctoral programs. But I recoiled at the price.
If I knew this was available during my MBA search, I would have been all in; EXECUTIVE MBA for the BUSINESS of HOCKEY
I believe they were also the first legitimate school to offer a Master's degree in Distance Learning. IIRC, the degree title was/is Master of Distance Learning.
Even at fire-sale currency discount, Athabasca is expensive. If you want that 90-credit no residence degree (i.e. no credits have to be earned at Athabasca) - it's the only place here you can get it. But when you count all your costs you'll have paid quite a price for it! Anything else - good school but major sticker-shock, as Steve notes. Yes - everything here is on sale to foreign buyers - not just US. Americans' favourite thing is to fly in, buy up recreational land for (what is to them) play-money. Other nations' favourite pastimes include paying serious money for urban Canadian properties. That has helped drive prices disastrously. In consequence, Vancouver has just added a 15% tax on foreign realty sales. Province of Ontario has hinted it has a similar plan in the works. Maybe someday, Canadians in metro areas will be able to afford homes again. Not in my lifetime, probably. J.
Not to digress, but I am happy that they are doing something about property prices in the major cities. The downside is that foreign buyers will just move to the suburbs and push up prices.
It's not just Canada. The same thing is happening here in Silicon Valley. It's hard to find a house for sale in my town for less than $1.5 million. About 1/3 of my county is foreign born. A lot of the big money is coming from Asia. Chinese and lots of Indians too. I think that New York City is considering a similar idea. Foreigners are buying up Manhattan too.
We both live in "nations of immigrants." Nothing wrong with that. Hey, I'm one, too. :smile: And nothing wrong with immigrants buying homes of course. Good all round. What is being targeted here is overseas buyers investing in property they will likely never even see. They don't need to. When the time is right, they'll just take their money. And yes, a lot (but not all) of the big money is coming from Asia. A while back, a substantial office-building here was converted into very nicely-done condos. Sold out in a few days. As I heard, several Italian buyers. The old days of impoverished Italy are long-gone. :smile: J.
