Thaindian News

Toronto, March 2 (IANS) Canada’s world-famous McGill University, which is the first-choice destination for Indian and other foreign students seeking to study in this country, faces fine for 900 percent hike in tuition fee for its MBA programme.

The Montreal-based university had announced last spring to raise the tuition fee from $1,673 per semester to $29,500 a year for its two-year MBA programme.

While students earned an MBA degree until now by paying just about $6700, they will now have to shell out $59,000 to earn the degree.

The university said the hike was aimed at self-funding the MBA programme, rather than banking on government subsidies. The government of Quebec province has been giving $28,000 per student to the university to subsidize their education.

McGill started charging the hiked fee from this year.

Cracking the whip on its famous university, the Quebec government says McGill will be fined for flouting the limit imposed on tuition fee.

Education Minister Line Beauchamp was quoted as saying Tuesday that McGill would face the music for its massive fee hikes that go well beyond the provincial limit of $1,673 per semester.

Tuition fees in Canada’s French-speaking Quebec province are lower than other jurisdictions in Canada because the provincial government imposed a freeze on hike for 15 years.

With the freeze time lapsing in February last year, McGill announced the 900-percent hike in tuition fee for its highly popular MBA programme.

Though their numbers are not known, McGill is the first-choice university for Indian students coming to Canada. There are only about 3,500 Indian students currently studying in Canada, but their numbers are set to rise steeply as Canadian universities and colleges increase enrollment from India.

More than 36,000 students from nearly 150 countries study at McGill University which offers about 300 study programmes on its two campuses in Montreal.

(Gurmukh Singh can be contacted at gurmukh.s@ians.in)