Don’t rely too much on common sense when it comes to financing your studies. The matter is more complex than it seems. What seems logical at first glance suddenly becomes much less clear once you break down the numbers.
Published at 3:16 am. Updated at 7:00 a.m.
The CAQ reform demonstrates this well.
For foreign students, this is not the catastrophe we complain about. But for students from other Canadian provinces, the problem is real. Quebec will become the first province to refuse to pay part of the tuition fees of candidates from the Rest of the Country (ROC).
For what ?
Before we analyze the announcement, let’s return to the context.
This was not an improvised measure in response to the Parti Québécois victory in Jean-Talon.
At the beginning of the year, the minister responsible for language, Jean-François Roberge, promised to present a plan to protect the French language by autumn. The Minister of Higher Education, Pascale Déry, has also been preparing the review of higher education funding for several months.
In June, Ms. Déry met separately with management at McGill and Concordia. She asked them to address three concerns: anglicization by their students from other provinces, lack of francization, and financial imbalance due to foreign customers.
Other universities were not consulted. They only became aware of Ms. Déry’s general intentions in the media.
A meeting was planned for October. Ultimately it served to announce the decision. Ms. Déry wanted to get ahead of McGill, which was preparing to unveil its francization plan (50 million in five years).
Working together, we could have done better.
What is Quebec aiming for? It depends on who is speaking.
For Ms. Déry, the goal is to restore justice for taxpayers and French-speaking businesses. For Mr. Roberge, it’s about reducing the importance of the English language in the Greater Montreal area.
There is tension between the two.
If Mr. Roberge fears anglicization, it is because he concludes that ROC students remain in Montreal after they graduate. But if Ms. Déry sees an injustice for taxpayers, it is because these people are leaving Quebec to work elsewhere instead of contributing to our labor market.
We may want to both reduce the number of English-speaking students and provide less financial support to them. But that doesn’t help us to use our university metropolis as a lever for economic development.
The reform consists of two parts. The first concerns ROC students and “reciprocity.”
It is true that other Canadians do not directly fund the Quebec model, which offers the lowest tuition fees in the country. However, the current system already took this into account.
In the late 1990s, their bill skyrocketed. It is about three times higher than the normal rate. Today, an ROC student pays us almost $9,000.
This price is roughly equivalent to what a Quebecer pays on average in the other provinces1.
The caquists break this balance. For non-thesis bachelor’s and master’s degrees, an ROC student’s bill would rise to $17,000. Or the actual cost of the training.
Quebec would be the only province not to fund some of the workforce studies of other provinces. According to Ms Déry, the defense of French justifies this exception.
“Reciprocity” appears to be an excuse to restrict ROC students. However, in contrast to foreign students and temporary immigrants, their number has hardly fluctuated over the last 20 years. Around 15,000 attend our universities.
82% of them are in an English-speaking company. We could have focused more on Francisization. Instead, the CAQ approach leads to a diplomatic incident with the other provinces and poses an existential threat to the small Bishop’s University.
Others can take solace in the fact that Quebec has not dared to make French a requirement for admission or obtaining a diploma – taking a course or passing an exam.
There is no scandal for foreign students. The attractiveness of Quebec remains intact.
Ms. Déry doesn’t stop them from coming here. Yes, there is a minimum rate of $20,000. However, this remains below the already asking price. A decline in their numbers is not expected. What will decrease is the money that English-speaking universities pocket.
In 2008, the Liberals partially deregulated tuition fees for certain science courses. In 2018, they extended this deregulation to all of Quebec. A university could now charge them whatever it wanted and keep all the money without having to share it with other institutions.
Ms Déry proposes a hybrid model. This market is only partially regulated. Quebec takes the released amount (the difference between the minimum amount of $20,000 and the actual tuition costs) and redistributes it to French-speaking institutions.
If a university asks for more than $20,000 in return, it keeps that excess in its pocket.
The details of this redistribution are not known.
But one thing is certain: it will be a zero-sum game. There will be losers (McGill, Concordia, Bishop’s) and winners (French-speaking universities). It defends itself very well.
For example, the network of Quebec universities is an unfinished work. Half of students are the first in their families to attend university and the ability to fundraise is lower.
To strengthen their knowledge of French, the caquistes could have gone further.
Here are two examples.
First, the special agreements. The French and Belgians are keeping their reduced prices, and that’s very good. But why give them this advantage when they come here to study English at McGill and Concordia? The discount should be used to reinforce the French-speaking world, not to practice your English.
Then underfunding. According to a report by economist Pierre Fortin for the Office of Interuniversity Cooperation, the underfunding of our universities amounts to 1.4 billion. Quebec supports them less than the other provinces and this gap is widening. However, there is a direct relationship between graduation rates and per capita income.
Instead of investing more, the CAQ government simply reallocated the current amount. At best, he plans to be able to redistribute around 110 million to French-speaking universities.
For a politician like Mr. Legault, who prioritizes education, economic development and Quebec pride, helping our universities more would be a no-brainer.
Ultimately, this is not about weakening McGill and Concordia. It’s about strengthening and leveling the French-speaking network.
1. Elsewhere in the country, the cost of a session varies by province, facility and program. For example, an Ontarion will pay more for an education in chemistry than for an education in history. We don’t have this modulation.