Concordia community worries about future as Quebec ups out-of-province tuition

Radish Loos came to Quebec from the Yukon specifically to attend a one-of-a-kind drama therapy program at Montreal's Concordia University.

"I saved up and budgeted so I could do this program," said Loos.

But starting next fall, Canadians like Loos may not be able to afford the program — no matter how many pennies they pinch.

That's because the Legault government is nearly doubling tuition for out-of-province students in an effort to protect French and disburse funding more widely among French and English universities.

The minimum cost for out-of-province students to study in Quebec is currently set at $8,992. With the change, their tuition will go up to about $17,000, the province's minister of higher education, Pascale Déry, announced this week.

International students will also see their tuition fees climb to a minimum rate of about $20,000, Déry said.

Raising tuition will reduce the $110 million Quebec spends every year to subsidize out-of-province or foreign students.

Déry and Premier François Legault have framed the policy as a way to stop Quebec taxpayers from subsidizing anglophone students who come from elsewhere in the country to study in Montreal and then leave without learning French or contributing to the province.

Legault said those students contribute to the decline of French in the province.

But this is worrisome for Loos, who won't be affected by the hike personally, but is concerned about the next generation of students.

Loos said students may be working toward their goal right now, completing prerequisites and saving up, only to discover they won't be able to afford it.

"It's so devastating that people are going to be in that situation," said Loos.

There are some exceptions to the tuition hike. For example, graduate students in thesis programs won't see a cost hike. But those exemptions won't apply to course-based grad programs like Concordia's drama therapy.

The head of Concordia's creative arts therapies department, Cynthia Bruce, says more than 50 per cent of students come from outside Quebec.