After several years of subsidizing French as a Second Language class fees for international students, McGill has determined that it can no longer afford to offer the program at such a low cost.
Last spring, the university decided that it would raise international tuition rates for FRSL classes in to improve McGill’s severe deficit.
According to Students’ Society Vice-President University Affairs Joshua Abaki, the Ministry of Education subsidized the fees which allowed international students to pay Quebec tuition rates for French classes at McGill until 2008.
“When [the Ministry of Education] stopped providing that subsidy because of deregulation of international tuition, McGill still continued enabling international students to pay Quebec rates,” he said.
The lower tuition rates were offered as part of the Principal’s Task Force on Diversity, Excellence and Community Engagement’s policy of encouraging international students to learn French and better assimilate into the Montreal community. After the Ministry of Education stopped subsidizing the fees, McGill continued to offer the lower tuition rates, but has since decided that this is no longer possible.
“The university is severely underfunded,” said Deputy Provost (Student Life and Learning) Morton Mendelson. “It simply cannot afford to deliver services like this for free.”
The change has raised concerns about the way it was adopted and the time frame for notifying students.
“Normally [McGill] does such a good job of telling the students [about fee increases], and they always give students enough time to plan ahead,” Abaki said. “This time that wasn’t done.”
Mendelson, however, said the university made numerous attempts to let affected students know of the tuition increase for FRSL classes.
“Websites were updated in early April to convey this information to students and an email was sent to students registered in the courses in order to give them enough time to change their programs, if they wanted to, without penalty,” he said. “For the summer term, students who were newly registered for the programs were notified in early May.”
Abaki maintained that students were not realistically given enough time to “actually plan ahead and budget.”
Abaki also pointed out that the fee increase schedule has been pushed back for graduate students, giving them more time to take FRSL classes with lower fees.
Ryan Hughes, VP external of the Post-Graduate Students’ Society of McGill Univeristy, explained that graduate students were not informed of the fee increase until September 1 2010, so the administration did not increase these fees for the fall.
“The waiving of fees for the Fall semester was not [the PGSS’s] doing,” he said.
Hughes added that although graduate students have had more time to prepare for the changes, he is unhappy with McGill’s decision.
“I find these increases problematic considering our diverse student population and their ability to both comfortably perform at McGill and appreciate the vibrant culture of Montreal,” said Hughes. “Obviously McGill is trying to balance the budget and of course, we are in hard economic times, but what the administration is doing is extremely short-sighted.”
The issue will be addressed at Wednesday’s Senate meeting, and Abaki is hoping a resolution can be reached so that McGill can make a commitment to provide all students the opportunity to enroll in FRSL courses if so inclined.
“If that means setting aside a lot of money raised from tuition for financial aid specifically for those courses, that would definitely help the situation,” Abaki said.
“Of course another thing would be to consider postponing the tuition increases maybe until the winter semester, or until next year, just so that students have enough time to plan ahead,” he added.
“Charging tuition that we must, and which we are entitled to charge, shouldn’t be seen as a lack of support for international students who are trying to engage more fully with the Quebec community and society,” Mendelson said. “We do, of course, try to help students who find themselves in financial need and in this case students were invited to contact the Scholarships and Student Aid Office if they needed help.”
