Traveling Cost: Poor students unable to give thanks.

Canadian Thanksgiving is a holiday where two things are generally involved: turkey and more importantly, family. Unfortunately, for out of town students, only one of those things can be found on campus.

Those students need to find transportation from university to their hometowns, while still staying within a yearly budget that for many, is a very fixed because of student loans.

Many students won't be able to enjoy a nice turkey with their families this year.

Because of rising travel costs, many students have opted to stay at school for Thanksgiving weekend, choosing the cafeteria’s turkey option over an expensive trip to a home-cooked meal.

Jeffrey Jenson is one of those students. Wagner is a fourth-year student at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia and lives a three and a half hour bus ride away in Moncton, New Brunswick.

“I really love thanksgiving,” said Jenson. “Usually, I can find a friend heading home to catch a ride with, but this year, that was impossible. I looked into how much it would cost for a bus ticket and [$46.33] was just too much to pay for a three day weekend and a few meals with the family.”

That’s right, it costs $46.33 dollars to travel from Halifax to Moncton on the bus. For students, that makes it all but impossible to make it home and back on a budget.

Some students are fortunate enough to own cars, but even for some of them, the travel is a struggle. Sam Madison is a graduate student at Acadia university in Wolfville, Nova Scotia and also calls Moncton his home. This year, Sam has decided against making the trip home from school for the long weekend.

“Man, I wrestled with it for a couple weeks and decided it just wasn’t worth it,” said Sam. “My car is pretty good on gas and it was still going to cost me way too much to get home for the weekend.

So I called my mom, sent her my love, and told her to send me some turkey in the mail.”

Sam drives a Toyota Camry, a car that has won award for being a very economic vehicle. He said that it costs about $40 in gas to get to Moncton and back to Wolfville again.

More and more students are starting to carpool and find alternate ways to get from point A to B.

Michael Manning is one of those students. Manning is from Toronto, Ontario and wasn’t planning on making the 14+ hour drive home until he received an unusual e-mail from one of his professors. His professor said that he had a few spots open in his car for the drive to Toronto and for contributing $30 in gas money, Manning could also hitch a ride.

Saying that he was excited to be able to see his family for the holiday would be an understatement.

For the rest of the students like Sam who are unable to make it home for the holidays, they need to hope that their parents and families can send love and turkey by express post.

Short URL: http://www.newbrunswickbeacon.ca/?p=1547

Posted by Matthew Robertson on Oct 10, 2009. Filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. Both comments and pings are currently closed.