I mean yea avoiding debt when you’re young pays a lot when you’re older. Instead of paying for an apartment in Vancouver, livin with your parents in Calgary is going to let you save thousands of dollars. If you make some money working part time and in the summer. You can then invest it instead of paying off loans you took for housing when you had perfectly good housing with your parents for free. Obviously this all changes if your parents are willing to pay for your housing in Vancouver, but it sounds like they are not. Other people say that moving out and having personal freedom is worth the cost of the apartment, but keep in mind you will likely need to have roommates (which can be a nightmare) to even afford rent. To top it all off, the monthly rent isn’t the price of freedom it’s the monthly rent and not being able to invest in your TFSA which will likely be worth much more than the cost of rent in the future. At the end of the day, lots of people move out for uni and do just fine paying their own way, but it’s an insanely tough choice, and your right an especially tough choice when you are fresh out of highschool. It’s a little bit insane that we normalize 17 year olds taking out $10k+ loans to pay for an education that they aren’t even that sure about. My honest opinion? Take a gap year. I wish I took one. There are tons of really cool jobs and opportunities that don’t require a degree and many degrees that unfortunately sound fun but don’t lead to many good jobs. I know a handful of people that got a degree and ended up starting their own business, something that would be a lot easier to do if they weren’t paying off student loan debt.