I respect your opinion, but I have an opposite one.

When I went to Ryerson I lived downtown for the first 3 years, then commuted from Barrie the final year. I now am downtown for work 3-4 times per week. I wouldn't even consider taking go or another form of transit when I was commuting, the benefits of having a car far outweighed the negatives for me, and saved significant amounts of time.

The key is a) knowing the right routes and b) having the right schedule

If you are 9-5 every day then yes, as above poster says, you're going to hate it. But I wasn't (and most students weren't), so it was generally fine. I get from Islington/Bloor to Front / Jarvis in 16 minutes on average between 11-1pm. The trick is to take the Gardiner to the lakeshore, bypass the section from the humber to jameson and jump back on the gardiner to take you across the CNE (the traffic slows for the jameson merge, so by getting off and back on you avoid it).

I was typically there for 2-3 hours at a time, and would park on the street for $2.50/hr. Prices may have changed, but if you wanted to walk you can easily get free residential parking (near gerrard / sherbourne for ryerson, would need to check residential parking and be willing to walk 15ish min to get free parking by UofT. Free parking does exist south of bloor, you just gotta find it.

My car averaged 10¢ per km for gas, so it was costing approx $20 round trip, but saving me 2 hours of additional commute time (I'd get barrie -> downtown TO in about 60 minutes, and go was like $20 anyway). Again, key is having alternate routes - be all over 680 news, really know the roads, etc. Hear that the 427 is rammed? Take eglinton to east mall, down east mall to rathburn, stay in collectors and take the loop from the browns line spin around to get on the gardiner east bound. Another going home would be Shit like that will save you, but if you just blindly get on the highway and go then yes, you'll have a bad time.

If you live somewhere that you have a direct route downtown (like a go bus) then take that. If you have to take a bus to a terminal, then another bus to kipling, then the subway downtown forget about it - you're making the right decision. I will absolutely agree that it would be nice to have the time to read / surf / etc, but it's also possible to use the time wisely with podcasts / audio books / etc.

You could likely mitigate your costs by carpooling, as there's a very high chance of someone else commuting down from sauga. Be careful about offering rides though, people will try to get it for free and then they won't want to pay - approach it the right way, "want to have rides to and from school and split the cost of gas / parking?" not "I can drive you home"!