Last Friday, Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson announced that McGill would refund tuition increases for Quebec students over the weekend. The university will wait to hear from the provincial government before crediting the accounts of out-of-province and international students.
Last year, the former Liberal Quebec government implemented an annual tuition increase of $250 for a period of seven years, starting in Fall 2012. When the Parti Québécois (PQ) won the provincial election in September, Quebec Premier Pauline Marois announced plans to cancel this increase, even though universities across the province had already implemented it.
In his statement, Mendelson said the process of crediting Quebec students’ Minerva accounts with the refunds would be completed by Monday, Nov. 5.
“We will await final word from the government regarding tuition for students who pay Canadian or international rates before adjusting their accounts,” he wrote. “The government … [has] signaled to us its intention to keep fees for out-of-province and international students relatively stable but has not yet advised us of its final decision.”
Although the PQ announced the fee’s cancellation in September, the Quebec government did not give McGill any final decision regarding the rollbacks until last week.
In a meeting with campus media this past Friday, McGill Principal Heather Munroe-Blum suggested that the timing of the election was a factor in the two-month wait.
“We need to understand that [this] government [came] in virtually at the start of the school year,” she said. “You wouldn’t imagine everything would be really clear right away, and, as you saw, the government made a lot of commitments during the election, and worked to come out with a position on those themes they were elected on … I think it’s not unusual that we reached October before we heard from the government.”
Munroe-Blum said she could not estimate how long the Quebec government will take to finalize tuition rates for out-of-province and international students.
Robin Reid-Fraser, vice-president external of the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU), said she thought many students at McGill would be pleased now that McGill is taking direct action to refund the tuition increase.
“For Quebec students, I imagine it is a relief to know that the cancellation of the tuition hike that was initiated nearly two months ago has finally been implemented at McGill,” Reid-Fraser said. “For out-of-province and international students, we’ll be staying alert to what the situation is with those fees.”
