Studying at an English-speaking university? In Quebec, that may cost extra.

McGill University students on the campus in Montreal, on Aug. 28, 2024. The Quebec government has increased tuition for out-of-province English-speaking students and has set some French-language proficiency benchmarks, a move that English universities say will punish their students and coffers. (Nasuna Stuart-Ulin/The New York Times)

By Vjosa Isai

Quebec is working hard to fortify its official language — much to the displeasure of some who don’t speak it.

Battling what many describe as the incursion of English has become a resounding political message in the province, North America’s largest French enclave. And Quebec’s government is finding more ways to lift the supremacy of French, the province’s lingua franca.

Provincial laws mandate that English text on storefront signs be half the size of French words and that employers reveal what percentage of their staff cannot work in French. New immigrants are given a six-month grace period before French becomes the only language in which they receive government services, such as taking a driver’s test.

Now, students from outside Quebec who are enrolled at one of the province’s two main English-language public universities will have to pay higher tuition than their counterparts from Quebec.

The tuition increase is taking direct aim at what Quebec’s government claims is one of the biggest challenges in preserving the French language: students who study at McGill University or Concordia University in Montreal but do not speak French.

“When I look at the number of English-speaking students in Quebec, it threatens the survival of French,” the province’s premier, François Legault, told reporters last year, days after the new tuition policy was announced. “I am very determined to reverse the trend.” Legault’s office did not respond to an interview request for this article.

The extra tuition collected is being redistributed to help French-language universities in Quebec.

Critics accuse Legault of targeting English speakers, or “Anglophones” as they are known in Canada, to score political points and to pit English- and French-language speakers against each other.

“It’s an artificial division that was created for political reasons,” said Eva Ludvig, the president of the Quebec Community Groups Network, a nonprofit that supports English-speaking organizations. “English speakers helped build this province and feel that we’re part and parcel of Quebec society.”

Some analysts say that Legault is acting out of political expediency after his party lost a special election last year to a party that promotes the separation of Quebec from the rest of the country.

Appealing to French speakers helps shore up Legault’s base, said Jeffery Vacante, an expert in Quebec nationalism and history professor at Western University in London, Ontario.

Besides the tuition increase, which starts this fall, next year Quebec will require that 80% of out-of-province students at McGill and Concordia reach intermediate French proficiency by the time they graduate.

Michel Leblanc, the president of Montreal’s Chamber of Commerce, believes the two universities need to do a better job of integrating their English-speaking and international students into Quebec society as a way to help maintain its distinct French identity.

“What’s happening in Quebec is something quite unique on the planet and it’s a social experiment,” Leblanc said.

McGill University is considered a crown jewel in Canada’s higher education system and viewed by many American students as an alternative to far more expensive Ivy League institutions in the United States. One of the oldest and most prestigious universities in Canada, it is internationally known for pioneering advances in artificial intelligence and health care research.

Not far away in Montreal is Concordia University, which has a highly regarded cinema studies program and is also a destination for design and communication students.

Under the new tuition policy, students bound for McGill or Concordia from outside Quebec will pay roughly 12,000 Canadian dollars a year (about $8,900). International students, who have always paid a premium, will pay a minimum annual tuition of CA$20,000 (about $15,000). Quebec residents pay about CA$3,500 per year (about $2,600), the lowest undergrad tuition in the country.

The universities have offered grants to nonresident students to help offset the cost of tuition, but the number of out-of-province and international students nevertheless fell at the start of the academic year, according to McGill and Concordia.

“This will degrade our universities and will degrade Montreal; not only its economy, but its reputation as a student city and as a city open for business,” said Daanish Khan, a political science student at McGill who has led a group opposing the policy.

The tuition policy was a shock to the two universities, which have filed separate lawsuits asking a Quebec superior court judge to toss out the changes, arguing that the government had not made a strong enough case for why the plan was necessary.

The universities’ administrations accuse Quebec’s government of arbitrarily punishing their students and imposing a financial burden on them after years of chronic provincial underfunding.

The number of English-speaking students attending Quebec universities has barely increased in the past decade, rising by roughly 2%, to about 103,000 last year, according to the province’s higher-education ministry. By comparison, there were 208,000 French-language students studying in Quebec last year.

“One of the disappointing things about this is that in many ways, Quebec has always been a leader and an innovator in higher education,” said Graham Carr, the president of Concordia.