The government’s intention to increase university fees for students coming from outside the province was the subject of several announcements last week. The Minister of the French Language, Jean-François Roberge, believes that the measure will help slow the decline of French in Montreal. However, this is not the main objective of the measure, which rather aims to rebalance the French-speaking and English-speaking university networks, according to the Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry.
This is the motivation that explains the second measure that the government is proposing: increasing the share of tuition fees collected by the government. This measure aims to redistribute resources from English-speaking universities to French-speaking universities.
Where does this need for rebalancing come from? Since 2018, Quebec universities have been free to set their own tuition fees for foreign students registered in undergraduate and master’s programs. The ability to attract foreign students has therefore become a major tool for increasing their income. This measure mainly benefits English-speaking universities. In 2022, McGill received ten times more revenue from international students than UQAM. This is not surprising given that for the 19e year in a row, the magazine Maclean’s ranked McGill University first in Canada among those with medical schools. Unfortunately, French-speaking universities are unable to attract as many foreign and out-of-province students as English-speaking universities, which deprives them of the resources necessary to prosper and compete on an international scale.
Is the solution proposed by the government the best way to solve this problem? The proposed policy makes English-speaking universities less attractive to Canadian students coming from outside the province, but that does not mean that it will increase the attractiveness of French-speaking universities in Quebec. This is the challenge.
French-speaking universities are ready to take up the challenge. Take the example of the economics doctoral program at the University of Montreal, which manages to attract exceptional students from French-speaking Africa at a much higher rate than what McGill has managed to achieve. These students carry out remarkable research, write excellent theses and go on to prosperous careers at top universities in Canada and beyond. This experience demonstrates that there is a pool of French-speaking talent in the world that Quebec universities should be able to attract, and if they are not fully successful, it is up to the government to find ways to make this happen. .
Rather than harming English-speaking universities in the hope of achieving a balance by leveling down, an ambitious government should instead find a way to unleash the full potential of French-speaking universities and allow them to attract a greater number of brilliant students from anywhere in the world.