Tuition fees for French students studying at Quebec universities, who are exempt from international student tuition fees, are set to rise under a renegotiated bilateral agreement between the French and Quebec governments.
French students will pay around CAN$6,200 in tuition fees a year –$4,400 more than they pay now.
“Canadian students out of the province of Quebec are paying three times more tuition than students from France”
The new fees will match the amount paid by Canadian students from outside the province, rather than the in-province fees they have paid for the last three and a half decades.
Until now an agreement signed in 1978 to encourage more bilateral mobility and support Quebec’s francophone identity has ensured French students pay the same fees as provincial residents.
However, renegotiations began in 2014 after mounting criticism of the allowance due to a rapid rise in the number of students benefitting from the scheme.
The number of French students in Quebec has risen by roughly 90% in the last eight years, reaching 8,000 in Autumn 2014.
Several universities in the province are backing the move, which Olivier Marcil, Vice-Principal for External Relations at McGill University in Montreal, said is an “issue of fairness”.
“Contrary to what it was back in 1978, now what is an awkward circumstance is that Canadian students out of the province of Quebec are now paying three times more tuition than students from France,” he told The PIE News.
However, the cost of them studying at a Quebec university will still be significantly less than for other international students in the province, who pay an annual $12,000-$30,000.
Because of this, McGill, which has a cohort of around 1,000 French students, does not anticipate “any dramatic effect in either direction” on of incoming French student numbers.
“You never have to forget that French students under this new agreement will still only pay around $6,000, which is two to three times less than what other international students are paying at McGill,” Marcil said.
Details of the arrangement are still under discussion, but the fee increase is unlikely to affect students arriving before September 2016.
