Quebec judge invalidates tuition hike, French requirements for out-of-province university students

A Quebec Superior Court judge on Thursday struck down a tuition hike for out-of-province Canadian university students in Quebec and the French language requirements that the province had attempted to impose on them.

In his 82-page decision, Judge Éric Dufour awarded McGill and Concordia universities a partial victory.

He invalidated changes that the Higher Education Ministry made to its budgetary rules. Those changes raised tuition fees for out-of-province students by 33 per cent and said 80 per cent of them needed to learn French by graduation. The changes also affected international students, setting their minimum tuition fees at about $20,000. 

Dufour struck down the rules that affected out-of-province Canadian students, saying that the ministry lacked data to support its claims that they weren’t integrating into Quebec society. 

“The evidence shows that the ministry has absolutely no data on this subject, or only fragile information to back it up,” Dufour wrote. 

He also said that the requirement that 80 per cent of out-of-province undergraduate students at English-language universities reach an intermediate level of proficiency in French by graduation was “unreasonable given the near-certain impossibility of achievement.” 

Dufour gave the ministry a nine-month timeline to revise the fee structure. For now, the current rules will stand, he wrote. The language requirements, however, are immediately invalidated, according to the ruling.

But he did leave the international student fee increases unchanged. He said it was reasonable that the government should want to rebalance the funding that English and French universities receive. English universities tend to attract more international students, who pay higher tuition fees. The Higher Education Ministry has said the higher fee structure for international students would allow them to redistribute money to Quebec’s French universities. 

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While the province is reducing its tuition hike for out-of-province Canadian students, it’s adding a French requirement that one university is calling ‘devastating.’

Quebec had initially doubled tuition fees for out-of-province students, later rolling that number back to a 33 per cent hike but imposing the French language requirement. 

The increase raised tuition fees for out-of-province Canadian students from about $9,000 to $12,000. 

Premier François Legault had said the presence of English-speaking students hurt the future of French in Quebec. 

The heads of Quebec’s English universities had criticized the move, saying the increase in tuition fees made their programs unappealing to students across the country. Both McGill and Concordia had said the tuition hikes had led to a drop in enrolment, and caused them to tighten their budgets.

The requirement to teach French to 80 per cent of their students was “totally unrealistic, both technically and academically,” Deep Saini, McGill University’s president and vice-chancellor, said in December 2023, when the Higher Education Ministry announced the changes. 

McGill and Concordia filed a lawsuit against the ministry, contesting the tuition changes, in 2024. 

It was not immediately clear if the ministry would contest Dufour’s ruling. Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry’s office said they would take note of the judgment, but issued no further comment. 

CBC has reached out to McGill and Concordia.