The Potentially Discriminatory Effects of McGill’s Prosposed Tuition Structure

Image By: McGill Reporter

Chapter 4 of the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms explicitly states: “Every person has a right, to the extent and according to the standards provided for by law, to free public education". However, in contemporary times, this principle of accessible public education has relaxed its constraints regarding higher education. 

 All students recently received an email from McGill outlining its plans to change its funding model related to the university’s tuition. Tuition fees for Canadian students from outside of Quebec would increase to around $17,000, a drastic augmentation from the current $8,992 price tag. Moreover, this policy will most likely have a trickle-down effect on the tuition for international students. As outlined by the University, much of the additional tuition that students would have to pay to McGill from this program would be returned to the government and reallocated to Francophone universities in Québec. As outlined by the University , this new funding scheme is designed to preserve the distinct French heritage within the province of Québec, facilitated by the most successful educational institution in the city educational institution in the city. 

However, this begs the question: although the motive behind the policy is clearly  to protect the province’s cultural identity, is McGill’s new tuition policy codifying its tuition with undertones of racial discrimination that would potentially inhibit Black students from attending the university, and subsequently deteriorate their capabilities to accumulate wealth?

There’s no question that when you walk around McGill’s lovely campus observing its’ Victorian architecture, you will find a predominantly white student-body roaming around the campus. According to McGill’s 2021 demographics report, just under sixty percent of students were White while five percent of students were Black. This discrepancy is significant, but what is of importance here is that around half of Black students at McGill are from Québec. The school’s tuition policy would thus affect approximately nine-hundred Black university students, potentially deterring non-Québec-born Black students from attending McGill. In the past, McGill’s out-of-province tuition ranked near the bottom of the list among Canadian universities, making McGill extremely competitive among non-Québec-born students making McGill extremely competitive among non-Québec-born students. However, a severe consequence of the policy is that it would disproportionately affect Black students.

Black students tend to possess greater amounts of student debt than White students. In a recent report conducted by the Institute for College Success and Access (2021), it was found that more Black students failed to finish their undergraduate studies due to financial considerations. This is the case as the stringent wealth gap, which has continuously been perpetuated through vastly greater wealth accumulation on the part of White households, has diminished the capabilities of Black students to attend higher levels of education as tuition costs increase. As a result, Black students tend to drop out of university earlier and at higher rates than any other racial group to pursue avenues that earn steady incomes to support themselves and their families. Thus, an almost twofold increase in tuition price is bound to have a disincentivizing element attached to it. 

Consequently, the costs of this policy could be grave, especially when observing the exacerbated effects tuition increase will have on these same wealth and income disparities. It is well documented that higher education plays a vital role in the accumulation of wealth among the middle class. For Black students who would potentially not be capable of attending McGill as a result of higher tuition costs imposed by the university, their prospects to build wealth are undermined, as lacking a degree from an internationally renowned institution like McGill would inherently bar them from accessing certain employment markets that tend to pay higher wages. As Black college enrollment has been decreasing steadily, already down 22% between 2010 and 2022, the opportunity for Black students to build wealth is additionally subdued as a result of this policy. The overall wealth effects are severe and are in direct opposition to the equitable position McGill holds regarding other aspects of its educational and support services such as its ensuring that students from diverse cultures, ethnic origins, sexual and gender identifications, religious or faith backgrounds, and all types of disabilities receive equitable and feel safe on campus.

A solution that I believe McGill should pursue is a progressive tuition program instead of the proposed proportional increase. Progressive tuition exemplifies the principle of equity. It provides students with a similar incentive structure to attend university, redistributing resources to make the playing field more even. This policy would be all-encompassing. Enabling McGill to maintain its goal regarding the conservation of Quebec’s cultural heritage, progressive tuition also goes a step further in addressing socioeconomic inequalities, promoting diversity and inclusion, and improving the accessibility of higher-level education for underrepresented racial groups higher-level education for underrepresented racial groups. Of course, this suggestion does not come without its own set of implications. Specifically, collecting family income data requires stringent privacy safeguards to ensure that the process respects students' confidentiality and data security. 

Moreover, the public perception of such a program may be mixed, with concerns about potential negative impacts on middle-income families feeling the largest burden of the policy. Lastly, creating an equitable and effective system based on family income will require meticulous planning and administrative processes, resulting in more expensive screening processes. In this respect, each of the aforementioned difficulties with progressive tuition may allow McGill to reconsider where its interest lie regarding the increase in tuition altogether. However, McGill, as a leading educational institution on this planet, must find an effective means of addressing the conservation of the French language while also being certain that a new tuition hike will not discriminate on racial lines. 

However, there is no doubt Universities, especially those in the US, are leaning towards a progressive tuition model. Redistributing approximately 30% of tuition revenue into financial aid, the implementation of a progressive tuition policy at Northwestern University has streamlined the process towards a more equitable tuition model. This is the case as lower-income students would face reduced initial costs, diminishing the need for subsequent financial aid reallocations. Schools like Northwestern have been the first to adopt these policy changes, and McGill has the power to reshape a policy that has negative implications for a minority of students into one that has substantial long-lasting impacts.