Bilingual bargain
Move applies to international students
The University of Ottawa is offering big savings to students from abroad who want to study in French,
The University of Ottawa is drastically cutting tuition costs for international students who want to study in French as it tries to boost the number of francophones and francophiles on its campus.
Starting in 2014-15, undergraduate students from abroad who study mostly in French will pay the same amount as Canadian students instead of higher international tuition fees, saving them as much as $16,000 a year approximately. International graduate students who previously studied in French are also eligible for the discount.
It’s a “strategic decision” made by the bilingual university as it tries to reach enrolment targets for international francophone students in a competitive world, said Gary Slater, associate vicepresident (international).
The university’s strategic plan calls for a higher percentage of international students by 2020, and for the proportion of francophone international students entering the school to rise from the current level of about 18 per cent to 40 per cent.
About 600 international francophone students are at the university now, and more or less doubling that number that would be very difficult to accomplish without a fee reduction, Slater said.
Tuition for students who want to study in French is much cheaper in Quebec, he said, and most French-speaking students from abroad come from countries in Europe where tuition is nominal or free, or from other places such as Africa and Haiti, where costs can be a problem for students.
Some students are from other countries where parents have enrolled their children in French schools, but they can be lured by post-secondary institutions that have lower costs, he said.
“We’re competing against all of these factors at the same time. It is not so easy to compete when you charge $20,000 a year, depending on the program,” Slater said.
Estimated fees for Frenchstudying international students would generally drop from between $20,000 and $24,000 a year to between $6,000 and $8,000. Fees for similar graduate students would be reduced from the current level of about $18,000 a year.
Asked how much money the university stands to lose through the initiative, Slater said he didn’t see the issue that way. If the goal is met, he said, “These extra 22 per cent would not have come here without these reduced fees, so we’re not losing money — I think we’re gaining students and we’re gaining international visibility.”
Over all, the university wants half of its population by 2020 to be either francophone, high school immersion students or students registered in a university immersion program.
The figure stood at 41.3 per cent in 2010-11, though gains among university immersion students have been made since then, said Christian Detellier, the university’s vice-president academic and provost.
“It all comes back to really our fundamental mandate, which is to serve the FrancoOntarian community and to be at the service of providing very high quality teaching and training to both populations, to the francophone and the anglophone population,” Detellier said. Helping the international francophonie is another part of the mission, he added, and there’s more capacity in French classes than in English ones.
“I think we increase the opportunities for our anglophone students also by having that balance on the campus,” Detellier said, by giving them opportunities to take courses in French and experience the culture.
The strategic plan calls for 33 per cent of students to be francophone by 2020, up from 31.1 per cent in 2010-11.
It also sets a target of having international students make up nine per cent of the overall population, up from 5.6 per cent in 2010-11.
The university is working to create more joint programs with universities in other countries, and offering lower tuition fees should help, Slater said. The reduced fees should also attract PhD students that the university is targeting, he said.
Like other universities, the University of Ottawa has other strategic agreements that can cut international fees for particular students in English or French, Slater noted. Brazilian graduate students benefit under one current agreement he cited.
Elsewhere, the University of Windsor, which is close to Detroit, has approved a “U.S. Neighbour Fee” that reduces first-year undergrad tuition in any program except law by up to half for American students, to $5,000 per semester, for example.
“This would be the largest such program (at the University of Ottawa), but it’s not the first such program,” Slater said.
The fee reduction has been well-received by embassies and people abroad, said Slater. It’s expected that the policy will be reviewed after five years, he said.
While the change is a “bonus” for francophone international students, “It’s very important for the University of Ottawa to acknowledge the fact that anglophone international students are paying four to five times what domestic students are paying in tuition fees and that international students should not be at any point in time treated as cash cows on this campus,” said Anne-Marie Roy, president of the Student Federation of the University of Ottawa.
Many international students ask the student association about financial support, she said. Roy noted tuition fees went up 10 per cent for international students entering the university in 2013-14, compared to three to five per cent for domestic students.