This article claims much higher fees at some schools for 2023. The fee is determined not just by “real cost” (itself dubious) but what American universities charge and what one can get away with.
For starters I’ll just copy and paste what I wrote in the other thread, where it was a digression that I didn’t intend to continue further. I’m not sure there’s a lot of point in continuing it further here, either, as it’s likely a case of the OP and I just disagreeing on basic principles. In any case, this is what I said earlier, and I stand by it:
Agreed that education is critically important – it’s a pillar of civilization and the lifeblood of every country. It also costs money. In Canada we’re fortunate to have a well-funded public education system with one of the best public school systems in the world, and although universities are not as well funded as they used to be, they still receive substantial taxpayer funding.
Foreign students are welcome here but they are not taxpayers and should not benefit from taxpayer subsidies. It’s only fair that they bear the full cost of their university tuition. Any subsidies that foreign students receive should be from their home countries.
That’s about the same level of logic as saying that I should get a free seat on an intercontinental airline flight because the airplane is going there anyway – and hey, look, there’s an empty seat in first class, too!
But it’s even more than that. Overcrowded universities where undergrads are treated like a herd of cattle is a problem for everyone. This was definitely the case at one prestigious university I attended whose excellence was in its research and graduate programs, but certainly not in the experience offered to undergrads. It was much, much better when I switched to the Honours program but for other reasons I later switched universities part way through my undergrad years and it was wonderfully refreshing to attend one with more ample resources.
And a lot of them won’t. Or won’t be eligible even if they do. In any case, we should not subsidize foreign students based on what they might do in the future.
For their own citizens, sure. But we have neither the means nor the obligation to support higher education for the entire world. The idea that post-secondary education should be free for everyone is a noble aspiration, and, like many noble aspirations, it’s great until you run out of money and the noble aspiration self-destructs. Access to higher education shouldn’t be constrained by financial means, but it should be restricted by academic qualifications and citizenship.
I agree our universities and research programs should be better supported, but given the realities as they are, why is it a bad thing for wealthy foreign students with fancy cars and even their own homes (and I’ve known my share of them) to pay their own way and help support our post-secondary institutions?
You can also add the fact that some students may be eligible for grant money to help with tuition (I don’t mean student loans, but outright grants) but because education falls entirely under provincial jurisdiction, you lose that privilege if transferring to a different province.
A personal anecdote. I started university when I lived at home in the province of Quebec, and received a small grant from the province to help with tuition. When I tranferred to a university in Ontario, the Quebec government went “No soup grant for you! You should have stayed in Quebec. Sucks to be you.” And the Ontario government went “Do you live here? We never heard of you. Sucks to be you.” So, as a Canadian citizen, I had to pay my own way through university just because I moved between provinces. And yet some here seem inclined to want us to subsidize the tuition of anyone in the world who wants to come here.
Do you believe it costs the University of Toronto $60,000 per year to teach an undergraduate arts or science student? Because of not, that student is not being charged “the real cost”, which was your phrase.
Perhaps you could ask someone from Cape Breton if the policies of their university has wider effects on the community. Do you think polluters are responsible for the effects they cause?
U of T is a bit of an outlier among major Canadian universities in what they charge international students, which I presume is why you’re citing it. But the average tuition at Harvard in Canadian dollars is CAD $77,367, and at nearby MIT, where I presume they’re pretty good at math, they’ve set the average tuition at CAD $81,745.
So yes, without tax subsidies, those numbers are all in the same ballpark, and it appears that foreign students attending U of T are actually getting a deal. Of course Canadian students pay only a small fraction of that, but the presumption is that their parents have been paying into the educational system their whole lives, and the further presumption that educating Canadian students and creating a more educated population will (not some hopeful fantasy about might) directly contribute to the nation’s well-being.
I’m confused by this thread. I thought the complaint was that foreign students in Canada should pay more than the Canadian students, for various reasons. Then I learned that they do pay substantially more. So, what are we debating?
@Dr_Paprika apparently feels they’re being charged too much. I don’t.
Also, outliers aside, the average tuition fee for international students in Canada (as of 2022) was $36,100, which is less than in the US, the UK, and Australia.
How much more. I think a small surcharge to cover the additional administrative costs is reasonable, but the amount they’re currently overcharged is excessive.
I also think that their presence is a net benefit, as long as there’s room in the system (which there is). Some of the current overcharging might actually be in order to keep the number of applicants down; I don’t know, and I suppose I wouldn’t have a huge problem with that.
As a former University trustee, I can tell you that there isn’t much of a relationship between the cost of providing an education and the amount of tuition charged. If there was, we’d have to adjust for different majors, or even class by class. I repeatedly tried to get the CFO to explain proposed tuition increases in terms of costs, but they set the rates based on “the market” and then adjusted individual students with aid packages, grants, etc. Very few students actually paid the sticker price. The school, despite my objections, thought that higher tuition mean more prestige. (We weren’t a public university, so perhaps it’s different). Anyway, my point is that setting tuition rates should be viewed as “rough justice.” If the foreign students are paying 30% to 50% more, it’s probably reasonably “fair.”
I don’t know why some got offended that a few countries, considering education a high purpose, don’t charge tuition, and in a few cases do not charge foreign students tuition.
I think this noble, but I am okay with charging foreign students a reasonable amount extra. I shudder when people justify crappy changes by saying “that is how they do things in the United States” if it is not something that the US does particularly well. Naturally, my opinion does not change what actually happens.
But I didn’t start this thread, nor understand why some care so much about what a noble other country chooses to do over something which has zero effect on them.
Speaking only for myself, I’m not “offended” by anything being discussed here. I’m also not suggesting – nor have I ever believed – that the way things are done in the US is necessarily the right way to do things. But post-secondary education is, among many other things, a marketplace. So the tuition fees charged by prestigious American universities have some relevance to the fees that top Canadian universities charge international students, and figure into the decisions that those students make about which college they want to attend.
l wouldn’t characterize myself as “caring so much” about this issue to the point of obsession, but I do care because it’s incorrect to say that it has “zero effect” on me. It affects me as a Canadian citizen and a father because I care about the well-being of my country, about the quality of our post-secondary education system, about its financial solvency, about the potential issues of overcrowding and the stresses that it puts not only on the education system itself but also on the larger community in terms of housing and health care. Indeed, the federal government recently announced a reduction in the number of study permits that will be issued to international student applicants over the next two years for just these reasons:
The Honourable Marc Miller, Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship announced today that the Government of Canada will set an intake cap on international student permit applications to stabilize new growth for a period of two years. For 2024, the cap is expected to result in approximately 360,000 approved study permits, a decrease of 35% from 2023. In the spirit of fairness, individual provincial and territorial caps have been established, weighted by population, which will result in much more significant decreases in provinces where the international student population has seen the most unsustainable growth.
Canada to stabilize growth and decrease number of new international student permits issued to approximately 360,000 for 2024 - Canada.ca
Is anything more important than money?
This link has a map on countries that do not charge their own citizens for tertiary education. You might notice there are quite a few of them (though some depend on EU reciprocity agreements).
https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/countries-with-free-college
I don’t think it wrong to charge moderate amounts if the quality of education is high. I don’t think it wrong to charge students from outside Canada more than what Canadians pay. I do think there are limits to how much more is reasonable. And if these fees are profiteering, say so rather than make up some nonsense about actual costs. How Germany, Iceland, Kenya and Argentina, among others, choose to run their education systems does not affect me at all. Except these might be nice countries to do a PhD in when I am old and grey (or more so). Of course, this may mean mastering another language.
The decline in study permits is being made because of immigration schemes masquerading as offering quality education. And politically unpopular policy given limitations in the amount of homes, health care and other resources. But the fact this was badly thought out and was often unfair and exploitative of international students is not reason to disallow the principle, which can benefit all and he conducted reasonably, for the reasons Frodo mentioned.
I would predict that the class size will not change regardless of the number of foreign students. They will “overcrowd” or not, regardless of the nationality of the students.
Absolutely, lots of things are far more important than money! Please don’t try to characterize me as some sort of American Republican, which is the exact opposite of what I am. The things that are far more important than money are the many and varied things that fall under the umbrella term “quality of life”. Quality of life is what I love most about Canada and what I strive to preserve and enhance. And one of the necessities of that preservation is not to delude ourselves that we can afford to be the altruistic caretakers of the entire world.
It’s not about nationality, it’s about headcount. I speak as someone whose first year in a prestigious Canadian university included classes held in a large auditorium where the lectures, undoubtedly by a distinguished professor, were on videotape, and the only actual live people there other than the unfortunate students were the TAs whose primary role was more or less to minimize the number of paper airplanes being thrown.
I got the hell out of that environment, as I said before, first by moving into a much more restricted Honours Science program, which had real, actual classes and in many cases really wonderful professors, and then for other reasons moving to a different school altogether. But this is an example of what overcrowding does.
I agree completely. But fewer foreign students doesn’t equate to smaller classes.
For that specific concern, there may be zoning laws that restrict the number of unrelated people who can live in the same household. Not to say that it doesn’t happen, but at least in theory, there are ways to deal with it.
I don’t have much familiarity with Canadian university prices. In the US, the cheapest way to go is a community college for 2 years, then finish up at a 4 year in-state university - both while living at home with the parents. The community college would be less than a thousand dollars per semester (I could be wrong; I’d have to check what we paid for my son, but it’s in that ballpark).
The in-state tuition / fees / books would be 7,000 or so per semester, or 14,000 a year. Room and board doubles that. I don’t know how those tuition figures compare with what a citizen pays in Canada.
By comparison, an out-of-state student would be paying 3-4 times as much in tuition. My own university charges about 4.5 times as much (the difference was NOT that high when I attended!! and I’m pretty much sure it has grown faster than inflation). It’s cheaper than Harvard - but not by as much as you’d think.
Anyway, are there not similar differences between Canadian residents and non-residents, tuition-wise? Are there differences for out-of-province students?
Oh, it’s entirely outside the bilaws, but it’s not like the kids being exploited, (only other students from poor countries would rent this kind of housing), are going to report it. This only came to light when neighbours spoke up or there was a fire etc. It’s never been seen before, no one expected such a thing. Specially buying a second house for this purpose.
The statement that fewer students leads to smaller classes seems like a pretty trite tautology, so I assume that’s not what you mean.
Maybe you mean that if there were fewer international students, the school would maintain the same capacity by admitting more Canadian students. The implication here would be that international students are displacing Canadian students at Canadian universities. That may indeed be the case, motivated by the school’s revenue considerations, but I don’t consider that to be a desirable state of affairs, and judging by recent policy changes on foreign student visas, apparently neither does the federal government.
An undergraduate class might accommodate many, many students. Professional classes with legislated admission numbers or classes requiring highly specialized equipment do have meaningful restrictions.
That’s what I meant. I can’t imagine it’s not true. And because they pay more, the school has incentive to do that. I know our University marketed to foreign students for just that reason.