hmmm maybe east coast Canada is different from west coast? Here we have primarily commuter schools where vast majority of students live at home and use subsidized public transport (so no campus culture, isolated student body unless you join a club), apart from the international students who commute in Lambo and Ferraris (I'm sure they have no problem paying 10x what a Canadian pays).

Living on campus first year was expensive but I don't think I ever spent more than a couple thousand bucks per semester with a 4 course as full load that lasts 4 months. Science courses were the cheapest based on my experience of switching majors many many times. Business courses were the most expensive and the easiest and had no substance. We had like one student union fee which wasn't much, food was cheap if you just ate instant food. Oh and I spent like 3.5~4 hours daily just commuting to campus and back for 3 years. I remember I did some math and I spent a few months of my life just on commuting. All that work to get a piece of paper that can't even be used as toilet paper because it's so rough or rolled to smoke herbs due to fact that it emits toxic fumes upon combustion from the ink which says I'm qualified for absolutely nothing.