MONTREAL - Montreal's McGill University will be fined more than $2 million for having drastically raised the tuition fees for its MBA program without the permission of the Quebec government.
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In a province with the lowest tuition rates in Canada and a decade-long freeze on fee hikes, McGill has been pushing back.
Last September, McGill began charging $29,500 in annual tuition for its two-year MBA program — nearly nine times higher than provincial limit that caps tuition at around $3,400 per year.
McGill has said in the past that it needs the extra cash to make its program competitive with others in Canada and the United States.
The Quebec government says McGill's move broke provincial rules and lowered accessibility to the program.
"This downward adjustment will be applied until the situation returns to normal," Education Minister Line Beauchamp said in a statement.
"I still have a hard time, however, accepting that reducing this subsidy will have an effect on the quality of services offered to students."
University officials declined to comment, saying they would respond on Tuesday.McGill plans to increase the business administration master's rate by another $3,000 next year. In order to charge the higher rates, McGill has given up the public funding it receives for the MBA program.
The move follows a similar one by Queen's University, which privatized its MBA program in the 1990s, allowing it to set tuition rates higher than provincial limits.
Several other MBA programs, including those at the universities of Toronto and Western Ontario, have since followed suit.
