You could live in Surrey/Richmond/DL and it would be cheaper.
Transit gets you almost anywhere you need to go for cheap.
You can also get a better taste of multiculturalism in Richmond IMO.

I can't speak for the quality of the University of Windsor, but I would like to add something about Windsor itself.

You've mentioned that you don't want to be too far from Toronto (for whatever reason, I don't like it much). Are you aware that Windsor-Toronto is about the same drive as from Eilat to Haifa? For Canadian relations, that is not too far. :-) But for your purposes it might be.

Second, you've mentioned financial limitations. So I suggest to look not only at the cost of the University, but also at the cost of living. Especially rent! Rent would usually be MUCH cheaper in Windsor than in Toronto. Travelling, especially to the US, would be much cheaper from Windsor as well - if you use the airport of Detroit (sometimes there are also decent offers from the smaller airport of Windsor, I've recently enjoyed a cheap flight from Boston to Windsor on Porter Airlines, and you can't fly to Cuba from Detroit but you can from WIndsor).

From my point of view, the city of Windsor is a splendid place to live. Apart from rent and a better climate than in Toronto, you can enjoy a great view of Detroit and you can hop on a local bus and you will be in Detroit within minutes (not counting the time for border checks - I don't know how that works for Israeli citizens).

As long as you find out about which areas to avoid, Detroit is safe like any other big city in the US. Windsor is very safe, many residents don't even lock their doors.

There is a considerable number of people who work in Windsor and live in Detroit because real property can be had for ridiculously low prices in Detroit, because a lot of people have left and abandoned their houses. At the same time there are also residents of WIndsor who work in Detroit, because it is nicer to live in Canada. :-)

One more thing: If you decide for Windsor, make sure you don't take residence West of the Ambassador Bridge. In that area air quality sucks due to factories on the US side of the river.

You can always route via Europe to get to Cuba from the US on 2 PNRs.

Carleton in Ottawa is 5 hrs away, a $30 rideshare from Toronto, and most importantly, generous with merit scholarships. The Arthur Kroeger College is reputable for political science--Public Affairs and Policy Management.

Carleton has little recognition abroad and a bit of a bad rep as a party school (to be fair, McGill and UWO have one too) but it is one of the best in Canada for Poli Sci, certainly more than some names being thrown around here like Windsor, U of A or SFU. Coming all the way to Canada to read Poli Sci at the likes of Windsor or SFU (a very good school overall, but not in Poli Sci) is a bit of a waste, unless you love Canada. UOttawa is also pretty good at Poli Sci, its location probably helps for that.

If lower living costs/small town environment are more important than faculty/university rank I'd rather go to StFX, ULeth, MountA or U of S, if you consider Saskatoon small. These are all highly regarded schools (in terms of their size and purpose) but should all have low living costs. In the US, small publics are generally quite poor, with the exception of highly specialised schools like UCSF or public LACs like SUNY Geneseo. In Canada, there's plenty of good small schools, particularly in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick.

Queens is the suicide school and Western is pretty much regarded with contempt by all the other top schools in Canada. Why would you pay to go to a school like that? :D (for the record, I attended British and American universities... I'm not a U of T alum) Schools to avoid at all costs are "new university" types like Kwantlen, Mount Royal and Grant MacEwan. Attending one of these schools isn't resume poison like say... attending London Met is in the UK, but none of them even have a good rep in their own cities, let alone the rest of Canada and abroad.

I think alinka abandoned the thread. :-(

Plus traffic around Grant Macewan is terrible as it's located right in the middle of downtown

The University of Windsor is directly at the Ambassador Bridge. If you can qualify for a US visa, I would absolutely do so if you are living in Windsor. The two communities are intertwined at the hip. Assuming visa issues don't get in the way, you can take classes at Wayne State University in Detroit and pay Windsor tuition. The two schools have reciprocal relations. If you are going for a Windsor degree (which I agree is not as highly ranked as some of the others), you can use this to try and argue that the value of the degree is better. Check how Wayne's programs are. Wayne is a Carnagie Research Institution and its grad school programs are better ranked than its undergrad ones. The school, however, just replaced a very troubled president who hurt their ranking. I have a close friend on Wayne's Board of Governors and am a Wayne alum. I took advantage of the reciprocal privileges in the opposite direction.

Windsor is a small school. I found the profs approachable and caring. UWO is a great school but is very large and less personal. If you are continuing on for a law degree at Windsor you can get a law degree that is bar qualifying for both the US and Canada. There are only a handful of joint degree programs and this is worth thinking about.

To get a joint law degree a student pays double tuition--to both the American and Canadian schools.

Are you sure? When I went there (twenty years ago) things were prorated. I paid Wayne State tuition to Wayne and they paid Windsor (probably trading things on the books). Things may have been different for U of D students who had a similar arrangement.

Postscript: My mind was fuzzy. We could take classes as a guest student at Windsor, but we couldn't dual degree. U of D students could dual degree. Wayne still has this reciprocity:

http://bulletins.wayne.edu/ubk-outpu....13.html#52655


(Middle of the page) and the paperwork is all handled by Wayne and the money still gets funneled through Wayne. While I'm linking to undergraduate degrees, this is also true for the grad school programs. My wife used to be an adjunct at Wayne until 2002 and her grad school class had 40% Windsor students. Windsor only offered the class every couple of years and it was a required class for two grad school degree over there. If you didn't have an admissibility issue, you took it at Wayne.

I don't know what you mean by prorated tuition but tuition is one thing that was done better twenty years ago!

http://www.uwindsor.ca/dualjd/financial-aid
It is important to note that as a dual degree student, you are required to pay tuition and fees to both the University of Detroit Mercy and the University of Windsor.

Each student must secure financial aid to cover the costs at both institutions. To avoid conflicts, the financial aid offices at both the University of Windsor and the University of Detroit Mercy must coordinate award activities. Canadian & American Dual J.D. applicants will be asked to sign a release allowing the two offices to work together to cover the costs.



I looked into it and decided not to apply.

I casually looked into it but the articling requirements and the fact that your Law Society still might not license me killed that thought. (A NAFTA permit wasn't good enough, you needed a permanent residency track visa). I took a couple of classes but never seriously tried to get a Windsor degree.

Apparently Wayne does have one specialized joint degree with Windsor law:

http://www.uwindsor.ca/law/intellect...w-program-ipli

Wayne State treats Essex County Ontario as part of the State of Michigan for tuition purposes. If you never want to practice on our side all you'll need is a one year LLM. Our State Supreme Court just modified (January 1) the requirement that you need to be a Michigan resident which was always constitutionally dicey.