McGill University applications down a ‘catastrophic’ 20% after out-of-province tuition hike

globalnews.ca:

McGill University officials painted a dire picture Thursday of the impact already being felt by the institution over the government’s planned tuition hike for out-of-province students.

In October, Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry announced fees for Canadian students from other provinces would jump from $8,992 to  $17,000 starting in fall, 2024.

The changes are expected to disproportionately affect the province’s three English-language universities, which welcome more out-of-province students than their francophone counterparts.

Speaking to reporters in Montreal on Thursday, McGill Principal and Vice-Chancellor Deep Saini said applications are already down 20 per cent compared to the same time last year.

“It is a catastrophic drop in applications,” he said.

Officials estimate the university could lose between $42 million and $94 million per year depending on how the measures impact the recruitment of students.

“So it’s an ongoing loss,” Saini said.

To make matters worse, Moody’s announced Wednesday that McGill’s rating was under review for a downgrade, placing the university in a catch-22 situation.

“We’re looking at potentially a large loss in revenue to the university so that decreases our ability to repay debt and if indeed our credit rating goes down, it will decrease our ability to borrow,” said Deputy Provost Fabrice Lebeau.

“So these two things together are compounding each other.”

Saini warned that increased borrowing costs will make the university’s current and future infrastructure projects all the more challenging.

“Given the size of just our infrastructure projects that verge on a billion dollars, at this point we are looking at tens of millions of dollars damage to McGill,” he said.

A drop in credit