I have a 17-year-old son in his last year of high school. At this time of year, 12th-graders are thinking hard about their post-secondary education choices. They’re attending campus tours, learning about programs, stressing about their grades and, in many cases, calculating how much it will cost to attend the university or college of their dreams.
One school my son is considering is Concordia. Our family is based in Ontario, and my son loves the idea of studying in Montreal. But about a month ago, we woke up to the news that, if he were to enrol at Concordia in the fall of 2024, his tuition would be almost double what we had anticipated. Quebec Premier François Legault announced a plan to raise tuition for out-of-province students to about $17,000 a year to protect the francophone spirit of his province. (Currently, they pay a minimum of about $9,000 a year.) The tuition hike news came as a shock.
The administrative leaders of McGill, Concordia and Bishop’s are hysterical. They all rely on out-of-province students financially and view the tuition hike as a major threat. Sébastien Lebel-Grenier, the principal and vice-chancellor at Bishop’s, tells Maclean’s in a Q&A that the tuition hikes would force the school to slash a quarter of its budget—a cut that he calls “unmanageable.”
But apparently it’s not a done deal yet: Lebel-Grenier explains that the schools are lobbying Legault hard to modify the plan. “Bishop’s, Concordia and McGill have offered to act as an ally to the provincial government and promote the French language by offering more French courses—in exchange for the cancellation of this tuition increase,” he says. If that compromise is reached, parents of teenagers across the country will breathe a big sigh of relief.
—Sarah Fulford, editor-in-chief
