McGill University is launching scholarships to compensate for the increase in tuition fees imposed by Quebec on students from other Canadian provinces.
“We want future students to know that they are welcome with us,” Fabrice Labeau, first vice-provost for studies and student life, said Tuesday in a press release sent to the media.
McGill scholarships are worth $3,000 each. This amount corresponds to the increase in tuition fees for English-speaking students outside Quebec decreed by the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry.
The “Pan-Canadian Scholarships” aims to “compensate” for the increase in fees for students who will begin, in fall 2024 or winter 2025, their studies in “most science programs”, but also education programs. arts, agricultural and environmental sciences, music, education sciences, architecture and nursing.
“The granting of this scholarship, which aims to compensate for the increase in tuition fees, will be guaranteed for a period of up to four years,” explained McGill.
Like Concordia, McGill recently tore apart Minister Déry’s reform. “It’s still unrealistic in terms of competition,” said Mr. Lebeau regarding the increase in fees imposed on students from “ rest of canada “. The university said in particular that it had observed, in one year, a 20% drop in admission applications from other Canadian provinces. She said she feared losing $94 million due to the Legault government’s new policies.
“The University will have to make financial sacrifices to offer this scholarship, but welcoming students from across Canada is part of our DNA,” explained the rector and vice-chancellor of McGill on Tuesday. , Deep Saini. “For 200 years, McGill has always brilliantly met the challenges that have come its way. The great minds who want to study with us – from Quebec, Canada and around the world – are at the very heart of our success. However, this scholarship aims precisely to attract them,” he also said.
Mr. Lebeau, for his part, declared that “Montréal remains an affordable, safe and dynamic student city that has so much to offer.” “We are doing everything in our power to make McGill and Montreal degrees accessible to students across Canada,” he added.
The former president of Quebec Community Groups Network, Marlene Jennings, immediately welcomed McGill’s decision on social network X. “I LOVE IT. “It’s a very elegant and polite way of telling François Legault and the CAQ to go…” she wrote in English.
LOVE IT! Such an elegant & polite way to tell @francoislegault & CAQ “up your’s…I double your call”. McGill you have just shown why you are an internationally renowned university.
— MarleneJennings2.0 (@MJennings2_0) December 19, 2023
In addition to the increase in tuition fees for students outside Quebec, Minister Déry imposed francization quotas on universities. From 2025-2026, therefore, 80% of new non-Quebec enrollees in an English-speaking study program “will have to achieve, at the end of their undergraduate degree program, level 5 orally”.
Mme Déry hopes in this way to “encourage and push universities to go [recruter des étudiants] in more French-speaking areas.
It also imposes a floor price of $20,000 for international students. It therefore reestablishes a system of equalization between universities. Quebec claims to collect around $3,000 per international student and redistribute these sums throughout the network in order to “rebalance revenues from international students” and promote the growth of French-speaking universities.