In Canada, the military and some countries will “fund” medical residency spots, i.e. pay enough to “make it worthwhile” for the institutions. This might apply to some professional programs. But in many undergraduate courses the practical limits are much softer. Some Canadian colleges and universities have surprising numbers of students from many countries.
Far less than half the students at Harvard and MIT actually pay those numbers; they are for students from wealthy families.
I was talking to an American student at McGill around 30 years (so all numbers I give have to be updated) and I asked him why he came to McGill. He said it was a lot cheaper. And he lived in Schenectady, about 25 miles from SUNY at Albany. And his father was a GE engineer, so the family wasn’t poor. And the foreign students tuition was around 13K. To put this in context, Quebec students were paying around 2K and other Canadians around 3K. But all these fees went directly to the province and the province sent McGill a fixed amount for each student enrolled. How much? Of course, around 13K. So the foreign students were neither subsidized nor subsidizing.
One of my grandsons is looking at Canadian (and other) universities. If he goes to one, he will get the tuition for a Canadian citizen.
That’s a valid point, although I don’t think the proportion is “far less than half” – Harvard says that about half their students receive some form of financial aid.
There’s an important implication in the fact that many top US universities like Harvard, MIT, Stanford, etc. are private, whereas AFAIK all the top Canadian universities are publicly funded. This means that, although international students attending these US schools are not eligible for federal aid like Pell grants, they may get assistance from the school’s considerable private source of funds. But Canadian universities, subsidized through taxes, cannot offer such assistance either directly or indirectly (for example, by charging international students the same subsidized fees paid by Canadian students).
As for whether international students are being charged too much, I’d point out that MIT, where the nominal tuition averages CAD $81,745, claims that this represents only about half of what they calculate to be the real annual cost of each student, so draw your own conclusions.
MIT subsidizes the total cost of tuition for every student. (It actually costs more than double this amount to provide our cutting-edge research facilities and faculty!)
Cost of attendance | MIT Student Financial Services
I’ve heard that argument (that the total cost of tuition doesn’t cover all of the university’s costs) but many of those costs (such as research facilities and faculty) are separate from undergraduate education.
The calculation of what a student “really” costs a university is admittedly a fuzzy number subject to all kinds of assumptions. But surely the cost of faculty has to figure into it as faculty is the backbone of the school’s teaching resources, even for undergraduates. And the continuing value of faculty stems from them being actively engaged in research. The cost of research facilities is, however, likely to be higher in a technology-focused institution like MIT, but it’s always going to be a significant number.
Graduate students may benefit more from some of this than undergrads, so then you have the ethical question of whether it’s fair to stick grad students with the full costs of subsidizing a school’s research programs – grad students of course famously being a cash-strapped demographic subsisting on ramen noodles and mac & cheese until they finally get their post-graduate degrees and hopefully get employed somewhere.
But I will frankly state that one demographic that, although I welcome to Canada, I have zero problem with asking to pay their own way are international students. If they need financial help, they should look to their own countries. A pragmatist ought to be cognizant of hard truths like the fact that one has to balance noble aspirations with the actual financial means to suppport them.
The cite that I provided (and at least one other person provided) indicated that foreign students already pay more than domestic students. So what’s the debate?
That’s already been asked and answered. The debate is that some posters think that international students are being gouged by being charged too much. Some of the numbers and rationale I provided are meant to refute that claim. If, for instance, you take MIT’s claim at face value, it costs them over CAD $163,000 annually for each student on average. So why is U of T charging $60K so exorbitant?
I’d also point out that the recent student visa reduction policy is clear evidence that the tuition fees being charged international students isn’t slowing down the influx one bit, so it’s clearly not an obstacle.
Although the OP suggests that they think foreign students aren’t paying enough.
I can understand different perspectives without agreeing with them, in part or in full. But if a university claims it costs $150,000 to educate each student but the real value is half of that, one wonders how MIT acquired a $25B endowment and so are perhaps being selective when discussing costs and benefits. Particularly since teaching is a pretty small component of time for the majority of faculty. Even public U of T has a $3B endowment.
I think tuition fees should be moderate since education has social value, which is why primary and secondary education are funded. Research has value. Students often donate to their alma maters after they graduate. But this is not without controversy. The argument has never been stated better than in this hilarious John Mulaney video, which you must see if you do not know his views.
The above video is a must see. I cannot remember the last video I saw which did not have a single “unlike”.