Updates: April 29 – May 5

This week’s update is coming to you live from the Surrey City Centre Library! As CF mentioned earlier in the week, she is volunteering as a human book today. Being the supportive guy I am, I made the trek out for a day of adventure in Surrey. I haven’t been here since the new mall was finished and with the amount of development going on (the library is new and gorgeous) it’s a very up and coming place. Central City Brewing is located in the mall, so I’m looking forward to going for a drink after the volunteering is finished. I’ve always wanted to go.

So far, I’m suitably impressed with the library system out here. It’s a great reminder at how many resources are available at little or no cost. Despite having a Vancouver library card, I was able to register the card with the Surrey library system, so now I have wireless internet and book borrowing privileges in both regions!

While I’m chilling out here, I’ll be reading some of the posts below!

• Mr. Money Mustache is crusading against complainypants! The Cost of Living is Too High These Days, Waaah, Waaah! Enough said.

• The Globe and Mail ran an interesting piece from Rob Carrick. Carrick opines that ‘Young adults have a right to be up in arms‘ as it relates the Quebec student protests over high tuition. This is a tough one. Is tuition too high? In my opinion, it depends on your program and your out of school job prospects. As someone with many engineer friends, I am sure they would say that their degree was worth the money as they’re making very good salaries right out of University. Did a liberal arts degree? You would probably disagree that the amount of money you spent was worth it, given the few and far between job opportunities that offer a hope of paying of that tuition. University has become ‘High School 2.0’ – a default next step for today’s youth who don’t know what their path in life will be. Are we willing to fund further schooling or encourage students who otherwise would go to University by default to explore working in the real world, or considering a technical school? I lean towards the latter, however as you can see there are a lot of things to think about here.

• Young and Thrifty went through a big change this week, as it was announced that Teacherman and his partner from My University Money will be taking over the blog. I’m happy for all parties as I really do enjoy the work of everyone involved.

• My University Money provided some very helpful statistics on Quebec tuition. After reading this, I’m even more strongly opinionated that the students don’t have much of a case here.

• Liquid Independence posted interesting information on the median and net worth of Canadians and Americans. While the Canadian median is higher, the American average is higher. Read on to find out more! It really struck me how much higher the average is than the median. There are some very rich people out there…

This week, The Outlier Model appeared in:

• The Carnival of Financial Camaraderie #31 – Hosted by 101 Centavos