Quebec ignores advisory body concerns over tuition hike plan

Quebec is moving forward with a plan to hike tuition fees for out-of-province Canadian students by about 30%, despite a letter from a government-mandated advisory committee urging them to reconsider, reports The Canadian Press.

Committee head Éric Tessier says his group wrote to Higher Education Minister Pascale Déry last month to advise her the hikes could compromise access to education and make the province less attractive to talented young people. Tessier said in an interview that the Comité consultatif sur l’accessibilité financière aux études also believes it shouldn’t be up to students to bear the burden of financing higher education.

But a spokesman for Déry says the committee’s letter disregards the key goals of the tuition fee hike, which include correcting the financial imbalance between French- and English-speaking universities and reducing the share of public funding for out-of-province students who often leave after graduation.
Full report on the CTV News site