Quebec to Deregulate International Tuition

The Quebec government intends to stop setting standards for the fees charged to international students enrolled in the faculties of law, medicine, engineering, business, and all natural sciences at universities throughout the province. But the repercussions of the deregulation, announced on Sept.

The Quebec government intends to stop setting standards for the fees charged to international students enrolled in the faculties of law, medicine, engineering, business, and all natural sciences at universities throughout the province.
But the repercussions of the deregulation, announced on Sept. 11, are not yet clear.
Quebec’s universities will now be free to set the tuition rates for international students, according to Colin Goldfinch, VP external for the Concordia Student Union (CSU). Universities are currently only able to increase tuition when authorized by the province.
However, Concordia’s director of media relations, Chris Mota, said there are no plans to increase international tuition if the deregulation goes ahead.
“If the government decides to follow through on this, it doesn’t mean there will be a change in the tuition we charge to international students,” she said. “We are certainly nowhere near that type of discussion – if ever.”
But Goldfinch said that with Concordia’s multi-million dollar deficit, the university will take advantage of any chance to increase its revenue.
“The university is dealing with cutbacks,” he said. “So it’s likely they’ll increase tuition if they’re given the opportunity.”

Goldfinch also thinks the deregulation could go even further.
“There are rumours about an official letter circulating that says this deregulation could be used as a test-run to see if they can deregulate fees for all students – national or international,” he said. “The international students are just being used as guinea pigs.”
“The students are outraged,” said Noah Stewart, Quebec spokesperson for the Canadian Federation. He said the government’s actions “show a complete disregard for the contributions these students make.”
“International students bring a lot to us on economic, cultural and social levels,” he said.
But the university maintains that international students should pay more. “It’s expensive to get international students. It’s expensive to recruit internationally and the infrastructure to house them is also a costly venture,” said Mota. She said the deregulation allows universities to keep a larger percentage of international student fees.
Currently most of the tuition collected by universities is sent to provinces, which distribute it back to the schools based on the cost of teaching each program, as well as the number of students enrolled.
“We collect the fees paid by each student, hand it all over to the government, then we get back the same amount of money per capita,” said Mota. “It doesn’t matter if the student is from Montreal or Hong Kong, we get the same for every student.”
Last year the province allowed universities to increase international student tuition by 10 per cent and keep the additional money. Concordia approved the increase, effective this semester, in the beginning of September.

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