Quebec tuition hike could dissuade students from coming to Bishop's university, principal fears

English universities fear Quebec's tuition fee hike for out-of-province students will dissuade them from coming to study in the province, which would be devastating for Bishop's University, a small institution in Sherbrooke, Que.

Nearly a third of the students who attend Bishop's are from outside the province, the university's principal and vice-chancellor, Sébastien Lebel-Grenier, said. 

"Most of them will be priced out [by the new tuition fees]. It's going to have a direct impact on our capacity to enroll those students," he said. "That's really significant and that's really what our identity is about."

In an announcement on Friday, Quebec's minister of higher education, Pascale Déry, said new, out-of-province Canadian students will see tuition fees double next year — for most, that would mean their tuition would rise from about $9,000 to more than $17,000. 

International student tuition will also rise to a minimum of $20,000 per year. Déry framed the increase, the proceeds of which will go into government coffers, as a way to balance the funding of English and French universities in the province. 

Montreal's two English universities, Concordia and McGill, are more popular with international and out-of-province students than Quebec's French universities and, as a result, they make more money from tuition from those students. 

But Lebel-Grenier said Bishop's University, a much smaller institution located in Quebec's Eastern Townships region, in Lennoxville, a suburb of Sherbrooke, would be in dire financial straights if students from the rest of Canada couldn't afford the higher tuition cost. 

"For us, it's really a very, very serious threat," he said. "It will be prohibitive, basically, for Canadian out-of-province students to come to study at Bishop's. Let's face it, it's going to cost them twice as much as it would to go anywhere else in Canada."

Déry, in an interview with CBC Daybreak, said she was "sensitive" to Bishop's University's situation. 

"We're going to see what we can do for Bishop's but you have to understand this policy is for the whole system," she said. "I cannot really exclude Bishop's but we'll sit down and see what can be done for Bishop's University. It's a specific institution, it's a way smaller institution as well. It's a regional institution as well, so there are a lot of things to take into consideration." 

As for whether students will still come from the rest of Canada to study in Quebec, Déry expressed confidence that they will, noting that she expects the cost of some programs, like medicine and law to remain competitively priced in Quebec for out-of-province students. 

"I'm pretty sure they will still come," said Déry. "They will still come here because in other provinces the rate is still very high."

But Kelly Khan, the mother of a university-aged student who is considering attending Bishop's, said the increase in tuition fees may make Bishop's unaffordable.   

"We would like to come here, but it's possible that we won't be able to," she said at an open house event at Bishop's on Saturday.