Students at Montreal’s Concordia University say they have managed to stave off, for now, a 10-percent increase in tuition for international students. As in many countries, foreigners pay substantially more than residents to attend universities in Canada. Concordia’s student government has accused it of treating the foreign students as “cash cows” in imposing the additional fee without the formal approval of the university’s governing board.
The student-government president, Angelica Novoa, a student from Colombia and also a member of the board, organized an 11th-hour protest when she discovered, just hours before the board’s meeting this month, that the tuition increase was on the agenda. She says the protest worked because the board deferred action on the matter, and the fees already collected were returned to foreign students. However, the tuition increase will be on the agenda again at the October meeting. —Karen Birchard
