The Quebec Ministry of Education has recognized McGill’s Desautels MBA as a ‘specialized’ program, a year after McGill first began operating the MBA under a self-funded tuition model. That one controversial word has caused the Ministry to effectively retract the $2 million fine it had imposed on McGill in March for budgetary violations, after the university first announced the move to self-funding in September 2009 and implemented the changes in September 2010.
Since the fine was imposed, McGill has made changes to the program to meet the ministry’s criteria for self-funding. The university says the modifications have made the program more interdisciplinary, better internationally recognized, and unique among Quebec MBA programs.
According to the university, the old funding model meant that McGill was subsidizing an MBA education by about $10,000 per student per year. Currently, MBA tuition is set at $32,500, close to $30,000 more than the provincial cap of $2,069. McGill plans to continue increases in tuition up to the Canadian MBA tuition average of around $37,000.
A number of student groups, including the Quebec Federation of University Students (FEUQ), have criticized the decision.
“The [FEUQ] is against this change, because [McGill] is shifting from a public to a private program, and this is a massive attack against accessibility to the MBA program for a large population of students,” Martine Desjardins, president of the FEUQ said. “Right now [McGill has] two, private executive programs and no [MBA] programs of public opportunity.”
Upon graduation, McGill MBAs earn average starting salaries of $103,000 per year. While some may point to these large starting salaries as justification for tuition increases, Desjardins claims that high tuition might deter applicants from middle-and lower-income backgrounds.
“[Many] don’t have $30,000 at the beginning of the program,” Desjardins said. “We have to make sure that everybody that has the intellectual ability and is willing to go to the MBA program can [do so, and that] it’s not [determined by] how much they have in their pocket.”
Roland Nassim, president of the Post-Graduate Students’ Society of McGill, says his organization believes McGill should be able to offer a specialized MBA program, but only in addition to a public, ministry-regulated MBA whose tuition falls under the provincial limit. His concerns extend to tuition increases in other programs as well.
“Right now there is no [MBA] program [a McGill student] can sign up for that is regulated, and this is the problem for us,” he said. “Where do we draw the line—next could be Law or a lot of other [professional] programs that could be switched from ministry-regulated to non-regulated.”
