Interesting thread.

I don't really care much for the price =/= quality argument. If there's one country it doesn't apply in, its Canada (and I m not focusing solely on education).

In Grad school you quickly realise that its not the school that makes the students - its the students that make the school. I've worked with people from virtually every school in Canada. Two things struck me:

1. Canadian degrees are valued abroad. Windsor may lack the 'prestige' of Queens ( if Queens can be considered prestigious - - guess which school I'm from :P), a high GPA from there will get you into a top rate university in Canada or abroad. I've met Canadians grads from schools I knew precious little about at top rate universities around the world (yes, even the LSE - for any Yes Minister fans out there).

2. A lot of extremely smart Canadians go to smaller schools because they're cheaper. I have friends who are doing brilliantly who got into U of T and the like, but simply couldn't afford it and weren't willing to take on the debt. So they went to smaller schools that were more affordable. And now they're doing well - many better than I am (granted they were always smarter than me - I just had the luxury of being able to afford, without problems, the school I chose).

To the original poster, I would say simply that you need to find the most viable solution for yourself. This includes financial considerations, as well as academic considerations. As a general rule, most Canadian Universities offer you a top quality education - certainly on par with US tier 2 schools. The best Canadian schools are on par wtih US tier 2 schools - no Canadian school is at Ivy level, but a lot of them feed students into Ivy League grad programs.

Is Windsor a good fit? I'm not a fan of the city, but I don't see anything wrong with the school. In fact, as a Torontonian, I would argue that you would get a better perspective of Canada at Windsor than you would studying in Toronto - Toronto schools are primarily filled with Toronto kids from suburban Toronto. Its a bit of a bubble. In fact, the main reason I avoided it is because everybody else in my high school class was going to be there, and while they were great people, I was craving a little more exposure to the rest of Canada/the world.

Ultimately, your success won't be driven entirely by the name on your degree. It will be driven by your work ethic, discipline and perseverence. I went to one of the schools mentioned above, but I sincerely doubt it did anything for me that another school's name wouldn't - ultimately it was down to my marks and the impression I made on my professors.