Students back university, criticize lack of provincial bursary support
The majority of McGill MBA students support the program’s high tuition, according to a survey released by the MBA Student Association on Friday.
The release comes just days after the provincial government announced it would be fining McGill $2.1 million for raising MBA tuition without permission. Fees in the program rose from $3,400 to $29,500 last fall. The university has refused provincial funding for the program since the increase.
According to the student association, 70 per cent of those surveyed said that “the program is at a reasonable or below reasonable price.”
Students in the program are no longer eligible for provincial bursaries, in an interview about that issue last month, the president of the MBA Student Association, Pat Tenneriello, told me that the majority of students support the increase “because we see the investment.”
According to the student association, new professors have been hired and the program has already improved in international rankings.
The student association also used the release of the survey to criticize the lack of bursary support. “Our decision to pay the market price for our education should not affect our ability to receive funding in support of our endeavours to become future industry leaders within Quebec,” the release says.
While the Quebec government continued to thaw the tuition freeze in Thursday’s budget, tuition fees for provincially funded programs will still be assessed at a standardized per-credit rate.