Student applications to McGill, Concordia plummet after Quebec’s tuition hike targeting English schools

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Applications to Quebec’s two largest English universities from out-of-province domestic students dropped substantially after the provincial government announced a tuition hike targeting those schools.

New figures released after McGill University’s Feb. 1 deadline show that applications from Canadian students outside Quebec were down by 22 per cent compared with a year ago.

Concordia University’s deadline is in March, but it has so far seen a 27-per-cent drop in applications from students in other provinces.

Fabrice Labeau, deputy provost at McGill, said application numbers tend to be fairly stable from year to year, so this year’s drop reflects a major change that he attributes to the Quebec government’s tuition hike.

“The message sent to prospective students outside Quebec who may have been considering McGill was pretty negative,” he said. “There’s really a huge negative reputational impact that has happened.”

Prof. Labeau said the application numbers reflect the doubts university representatives were hearing on recruiting trips throughout the fall, as the government first floated the possibility of increasing tuition at the English universities. The message some potential applicants absorbed was that Quebec was not welcoming to students from outside the province, he said.

The government of François Legault has said its policy is aimed at protecting the French language in Montreal. In the fall of 2023, when the tuition hike for out-of-province students was first announced, there was talk of fees being doubled to around $17,000.

After months of discussion, the Quebec government announced in December that tuition at McGill and Concordia, both English-language universities in Montreal, would rise to $12,000 in September for students from other provinces, up from $9,000 this year. Bishop’s University in Lennoxville is exempt from the measure, up to a certain enrolment level, as the government said the French language is not under threat in the Eastern Townships.

Students from Quebec pay tuition of about $3,000 plus fees for student services and other amenities, whereas the average undergraduate tuition across Canada in 2023 was about $7,000, according to Statistics Canada.

Mr. Legault’s government has said it is balancing funding levels within the Quebec university system. It also plans to redistribute a share of international student tuition fees, which have been a major revenue source for the English-language universities.

After the policy was finalized, McGill announced a new scholarship, the Canada Award, for students from provinces outside Quebec. It’s worth about $3,000 annually and renewable for up to four years. About 80 per cent of incoming students from the rest of Canada are expected to receive the award, which is intended to match the size of the tuition hike.

Concordia announced the creation of Canada Scholars Awards, which are worth between $1,500 and $4,000 annually and renewable for up to four years.

In addition to a drop in Canadian out-of-province applicants, Concordia has seen a significant drop in the number of international graduate applicants, down 46 per cent compared with a year ago, as well as international undergraduate applicants, which are down 10 per cent.

Vannina Maestracci, a Concordia spokesperson, said although it’s difficult to know why students don’t apply, it seems clear that in this case it’s a result of the confusion surrounding the negative message sent by the government last fall to prospective students.

“We cannot recall such large decreases in applications in the recent past,” she said.

Simon Savignac, a spokesperson for Quebec Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry, said the government intends to work with institutions on the implementation of the new measures.

“Our universities are prestigious and will remain attractive,” he said.

The scholarships aiming to offset the tuition increase did not apparently lead to a surge in applications. But McGill is hoping the awards will help persuade students to accept the offer of admission, so the university can make up for the decline in applicants with a better yield, Prof. Labeau said. The field of applicants is still very strong, he added, and standards will not drop.

McGill said it typically makes an offer of admission to between 40 per cent and 55 per cent of undergraduate applicants from other Canadian provinces and about one-third of those who are offered a place confirm and begin their studies in September. In recent years, McGill has welcomed about 1,200 new domestic students from outside Quebec, Prof. Labeau said.

McGill and Concordia have both said they expect the financial implications of the policy to be significant. McGill has announced a hiring freeze and expects to lose between $42-million and $94-million in revenue as a result of the new rules.

Sébastien Lebel-Grenier, principal of Bishop’s, said his university has also seen a roughly 15-per-cent to 20-per-cent drop in applications from the rest of Canada. Normally that would be followed by a decline in confirmed students, he said, but it’s difficult to predict. He said Bishop’s exemption from the policy headed off a catastrophic threat, but it’s still facing a significant financial impact.

He said most of the feedback from prospective students and their families has centred around whether students from the rest of Canada are still welcome in the province. The university has been reaching out to say the message sent by the government does not reflect the experience they’ll have as students, he said.