The University estimates that this will cost them $15 million.
The provincial government’s tuition hikes and the federal government’s cap on international students have resulted in an 11 per cent decrease in all new enrolments at Concordia. This represents a 3.5 to four per cent reduction in the overall student body compared to last year.
New out-of-province and international undergraduate students are the most severely affected groups of students. Current estimates calculate that enrolment is down by 28 per cent and approximately 12 to 14 per cent respectively for these groups compared to last year. Concordia University is waiting until after the Did Not Enter (DNE) deadline, Sept. 16, to share the final number of students these percentages represent.
This will have an important impact on the university’s finances, which were already at a deficit before the tuition hikes came into play. Concordia says that the provincial government’s decision to proceed with tuition hikes is one cause of the reduction of new out-of-province and international students.
The Quebec government’s new tuition plan has raised the minimum tuition for out-of-province students from $9,000 to $12,000 per student per year, which is only the case for McGill and Concordia. This comes after an original plan to increase the minimum tuition to $17,000 per out-of-province student per year was reviewed. For international students, the minimum tuition price has been increased to $20,000 per student per year.
The university says that the tuition hike will cause financial losses for the university.
“On the financial impact of this, we estimate the cost related to new government measures for out-of-province and international students to represent a loss of around $15 million,” wrote Concordia University spokesperson Vannina Maestracci in an email.
Concordia officials point to the federal government’s cap of 360,000 undergraduate study permits for international students in 2024 to explain the decrease in international student enrollment, as permit approval has gone down 35 per cent compared to 2023.
“The larger decline this year is due to several factors: the changes in immigration rules at the federal level, geopolitical situations (such as the one between India and Canada last year) as well as the new measures introduced by the Quebec government last fall for out-of-province and international students which created much confusion for prospective students and certainly discouraged many international students from choosing Concordia,” wrote Maestracci.
Concordia in the red
The drop in enrolment only exacerbates the university’s already difficult financial situation. In its budget, Concordia forecasted a deficit of $78.9 million for the 2024-25 school year. The budget identifies and confirms $8.6 million worth of savings to cut into this deficit.
The university will cut a further $35.8 million in spending, which is separated into three categories of budget adjustments: academic and research activities; non-academic units; as well as institutional expenses, additional revenue and others.
As such, Concordia’s Board of Governors approved a deficit of $34.5 million for this year. This comes after the university already lost $30.9 million last year, which was much more than the expected deficit of $19.4 million.
Last year’s higher-than-expected deficit forced the university into a recovery plan, which includes measures such as a hiring freeze and an attrition plan, which means that employees who leave Concordia are not replaced by new hires. They have both been upheld for this year, in an effort for the university to save costs. According to the recovery plan, the university should return to a balanced budget in 2028-29.
At the time of writing these lines, the Ministry of Higher Education had yet to answer The Concordian’s questions. Premier François Legault’s office had also refused to comment on the situation.
