I'm actually surprised that I'm the first person you've talked to with the minimum, because I promise there are A LOT of us (even on this sub).
I chose U of T for a complex set of reasons, that I'll try to simplify. To start off, I'm a masters student doing a two year MSc, the first year was funded at the minimum and the second year was unfunded. U of T was always my top choice for my MSc because my supervisor is a rockstar and he puts out truly great work in my field and publishes prolifically. I do a very weird and specific thing, and my undergrad supervisor was also a rockstar but I needed a change. My current supervisor was my former supervisor's PhD student so I knew what I was getting into. U of T also has great international rankings, and since I did my undergrad at McGill I've always known that I wanted another "big name" school on my resume. I also figured that even though the package wasn't great, it was only two years and because I had been working full-time in my field I would have money to float me if the package didn't cover it. U of T is also closer to home than I've been living for the last 6 years so at a totally personal level it was a good choice for a masters. But I think the biggest reason was that I didn't totally understand my funding package and it was misrepresented to me by the university and my department. I knew that my second year was unfunded (because that's how the department works) but I did not realize I would have to pay tuition (to the tune of $8500) even if I finished ALL my coursework, and I was assured by the department that a variety of TAships would be available to make up for the lost funding. My department let in a much larger than normal cohort this year and thus TAships were very scarce, although based on required skills and teaching merit (so I've been told) I was awarded one TAship, of which all the money went to my tuition. So I'm living on savings and struggling at the moment.
Luckily, I am going elsewhere for my PhD. It's staggering how much money I'm being offered by schools of equal or (more importantly) lesser prestige than what would be offered at U of T.
I hope that answers your question.