College in Montreal

[Anonymous]

University of Montreal, Concordia, and McGill.

How are your American children finding the experience. What are the yearly costs? TIA for sharing your thoughts and experiences.

[Anonymous]

DC's childhood friend just graduated McGill, says it's practically the exact same as any northeast university campus. She loved the hints of Quebecois culture everywhere, and she really thrived for the most part. Apparently there is really underground greek life which is great to be a part of, but also amazing since it doesn't swallow the campus like American colleges. The campus is drop-dead gorgeous too. She now is working for Google, so everything seems to work out well.

[Anonymous]

cost?

[Anonymous]

All three are public Canadian universities and less expensive than going to an “out of state” public American university.

Of the three, McGill would have the most name recognition in the US (north east).

[Anonymous]

DS was accepted at McGill, but balked at the winters, and is attending college closer to home. We loved Montreal, though! Very friendly people!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:cost?

Not as cheap as it used to be. Canadian schools were being flooded with US applicants because of the exchange rate and have upped the cost for international students. Expect to pay what you would for a SLAC in the Northeast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:cost?

Not as cheap as it used to be. Canadian schools were being flooded with US applicants because of the exchange rate and have upped the cost for international students. Expect to pay what you would for a SLAC in the Northeast.

That is incorrect. It is significantly less expensive. Use their calculator and input international student for a Bachelor of Arts undergraduate degree. It will show you tuition in Canadian Dollars. Convert that number into U.S. Dollars.


https://www.mcgill.ca/student-accounts/tuition-charges/fallwinter-term-tuition-and-fees/undergraduate-fees

[Anonymous]

Conversion for the previous scenario

44,000.00 Canadian Dollars =
32,057.818 US Dollars


1 CAD = 0.728587 USD
1 USD = 1.37252 CAD

[Anonymous]

Even adding in all the other costs such as meals, housing, etc the cost stays below $40K in US dollars.

A SLAC is more than double, at 90K

[Anonymous]

I have posted before so you may already seen but my kid did the summer program at U de M and really liked it. They are only taking AP French in HS and not completely fluent so thought attending university at U de M would be too difficult (classes are taught in French).

U de M and Concordia are much more affordable than McGill. I believe Concirdia is taught in English.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Even adding in all the other costs such as meals, housing, etc the cost stays below $40K in US dollars.

A SLAC is more than double, at 90K

My kid was interested in U Toronto and total COA would have been $62k. I don't know if the Quebec colleges are different, but I find it hard to believe that total COA would be $40k.

Toronto college pricing is ala carte. STEM costs more than a humanities degree. You have to then go find meal-plan options and price those out. You have to then look at dorms and decide what dorms look good and price those out.

Perhaps, the cost could come down to like $55k if picking the crappiest dorm and the cheapest meal plan (though, that just means you are paying more out-of-pocket for meals).

[Anonymous]

Interested in Concordia as well and would like to know of any experiences.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even adding in all the other costs such as meals, housing, etc the cost stays below $40K in US dollars.

A SLAC is more than double, at 90K

My kid was interested in U Toronto and total COA would have been $62k. I don't know if the Quebec colleges are different, but I find it hard to believe that total COA would be $40k.

Toronto college pricing is ala carte. STEM costs more than a humanities degree. You have to then go find meal-plan options and price those out. You have to then look at dorms and decide what dorms look good and price those out.

Perhaps, the cost could come down to like $55k if picking the crappiest dorm and the cheapest meal plan (though, that just means you are paying more
out-of-pocket for meals).

Concordia and UdeM are much less expensive than UToronto and McGill. Also Canadas version of SLACs are called “primarily undergraduate” schools. They are all very inexpensive especially with the xr. Some might be cheaper than instate U.S.

https://education.macleans.ca/feature/canadas-best-primarily-undergraduate-universities-rankings-2024/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Even adding in all the other costs such as meals, housing, etc the cost stays below $40K in US dollars.

A SLAC is more than double, at 90K

My kid was interested in U Toronto and total COA would have been $62k. I don't know if the Quebec colleges are different, but I find it hard to believe that total COA would be $40k.

Toronto college pricing is ala carte. STEM costs more than a humanities degree. You have to then go find meal-plan options and price those out. You have to then look at dorms and decide what dorms look good and price those out.

Perhaps, the cost could come down to like $55k if picking the crappiest dorm and the cheapest meal plan (though, that just means you are paying more
out-of-pocket for meals).

Concordia and UdeM are much less expensive than UToronto and McGill. Also Canadas version of SLACs are called “primarily undergraduate” schools. They are all very inexpensive especially with the xr. Some might be cheaper than instate U.S.

https://education.macleans.ca/feature/canadas-best-primarily-undergraduate-universities-rankings-2024/

This. Go to one of these, establish residency, work for a couple years and do grad school as resident cheaply. And escape the horrors of the upcoming election.

[Anonymous]

We just visited McGill last week, and the tour guide told the group that the university plans to raise tuition for international students next year. Not sure by how much, but apparently they also plan to expand/increase merit aid as well. It sounded like the school was trying to avoid passing on tuition increases to Quebec students, but also didn’t want to overly discourage international applicants (currently about 1/4 of their enrollment).

I don’t know any more details than that, but just be aware that this year’s McGill numbers might not reflect next year’s.

Also, if people think they’re going to avoid all the protests by going to school in Canada—McGill still has a pro-Palestinian encampment on campus (even though spring semester is over), and there was an unrelated faculty protest going on elsewhere on campus. Although the latter were exceedingly polite, and cheerfully parted to let the tour group through.