Quebec’s provincial government has chosen to keep a 33 per cent tuition hike for out-of-province students attending an English university, who enrolled after Fall 2024, despite a 2025 Quebec Superior Court ruling that found the increase unreasonable. In a recent updated policy, the government justified its decision to maintain the hike as a measure to prevent Quebec taxpayers from having to fund the education of non-Quebecois Canadians.

The hike, initially introduced in 2024, increased tuition for out-of-province students from $9,000 CAD to $12,000 CAD. This increase primarily affects students at Concordia and McGill, the two largest English-language universities in Quebec. 

In a written exchange with The Tribune, McGill’s Media Relations Office (MRO) declined to comment on the university’s perspective on the tuition hike. 

While McGill’s administration has avoided taking a public stance on the policy, students say it has changed their perspectives on the university’s affordability. Orion Pirang, a U1 Management student from Ontario, said the tuition hike would have changed his decision to attend McGill had it been in place when he applied.

“It probably would have [changed my decision to go to McGill]. I think part of the reason that I chose it over Queens was […] because, even without scholarships, the tuition was manageable,” Pirang said. “Compared to Queens […] it’s still significantly less, but across the board, it makes it a lot more unaffordable. Especially compared to in-province, [even] if you’re not from Toronto, it would be cheaper now to go to the University of Toronto.”

For Pirang, the policy felt like an extension of broader political conflicts over language in Quebec. 
“Quebec has a long and tenuous history of conflict between Anglophones and Francophones, and, in administrations past, they’ve perpetuated this division,” Pirang said. “On one hand, it almost feels inflammatory and prejudiced, but on the other hand, it doesn’t feel productive. It doesn’t seem like it’s doing meaningful work to protect the French language, and all it’s really doing is sowing divide.”