Montreal appears to be a perfect student city: there are multiple universities, a variety of student- friendly neighbourhoods, cafes on every corner, and a cost of living that has been historically lower than cities like Toronto or Vancouver. This student- friendly reputation has also been affirmed internationally; in QS’s Best Student City ranking, Montreal sat at 20th worldwide and second in North America. However, rankings do not necessarily show how affordable Montreal is for students, who struggle to manage their finances with expenses like rent, food, and tuition. Quality of life varies widely, and the concept of “affordability” itself is subjective. Rather than debate whether Montreal is cheaper than other heavily student- populated cities in Canada, we should instead be concerned with who can actually afford to be a student in Montreal today. At McGill, like at most other universities in Montreal, the answer starts with where you come from. For the 2026-2027 academic year, Quebec students pay a basic tuition rate of $103.92 per credit while newly admitted out-of-province Canadian students pay approximately $432.85 per credit, more than four times the Quebec rate. For an international student, the tuition is $1,920 per credit in most undergraduate programs at McGill.
These differences in cost are continually shaped by provincial politics. In 2023, the Quebec government announced higher tuition requirements for out-of- province Canadian students at English-language universities such as McGill and Concordia, alongside new French-language measures. McGill and Concordia challenged some parts of these policies in court with the Quebec Superior Court delivering its verdict in April 2025. The court ruled the measures unreasonable, finding that the government had not provided sufficient evidence to justify the tuition increase and that the French-language target was nearly impossible to achieve. While the French-language requirement was struck down, Quebec revised its tuition policy and chose to maintain the higher fees in January 2026. The increased out-of-province rates remain in effect for the 2026- 2027 academic year. While students may attend the same university, take the same courses, and may even sit beside each other in the same lecture hall, their different hometowns means they’ll pay dramatically different fees for the same university experience. Tuition, however, is only the beginning of this problem.
The variation in cost of attending McGill as an out-of-province or international student
is also significant, particularly when it comes to the choice of living in residence for first year. At New Residence Hall, for example, a regular double room costs $1,575 a month per
student while a single room costs $1,800. Students also have to purchase a mandatory $6,150 meal plan alongside other residence fees.
Cheaper options exist, such as Solin Hall, where rooms start at $1,135 a month and students cook for themselves; however, they must commute to campus. Some first-years also choose to live off-campus, while local Quebec students who can stay with family may avoid housing costs altogether. For a first-year student already adjusting to university life, these costs can make life in Montreal feel very different from the affordable city they may have imagined.
The rental situation outside residence is more complicated. After years of increasing prices, Montreal’s rental market has begun to show some signs of cooling. Statistics Canada reported that the average rent for a two-bedroom apartment fell 5.2 per cent between the second quarters of 2025 and 2026. Still, this does not mean that housing has suddenly become affordable for students. Canada Mortgage Housing Corporation reported that rents rose 7.2 per cent in 2025 and that the city’s most affordable units remained particularly difficult to find. Students already working with limited budgets do not necessarily feel the effects of a cooling rental market following years of increasing housing costs.
McGill itself recommends Milton-Parc, downtown, and the Lower Plateau for students who want to stay close to campus, while pointing students looking to save money towards neighbourhoods such as Verdun, NDG, Hochelaga, Villeray and Parc-Extension. The latter set of options are farther away and are therefore cheaper at the cost of a longer commute.
The most obvious response to rising student expenses is often what I like to label as the “just get a job” choir. While people will often give this response to students facing financial troubles, the solution is not always as simple as it sounds. Montreal cut 21,000 jobs in August alone, while the city’s unemployment rate stood at 6.5 per cent. Although this was comparable to Toronto’s 6.7 per cent and Vancouver’s 6.5 per cent, the sharp monthly loss of employment points to a difficult job market for students who are looking for work. The unemployment rate for people aged 15 to 24 was 12.9 per cent, and among students planning to return to school it was 15.6 per cent nation- wide. For students who do not speak French, the search can be even more limited, 28 per cent of English- speaking adults in Quebec who had recently applied for a job or promotion felt they had been unsuccessful because of language-related reasons.
Working a part-time job during university can be a valuable experience for many students, yet there is a difference between choosing to work part-time for extra cash and depending on a job to afford the costs of university. These hours spent working to afford one’s studies are lost hours that could have been spent studying, participating in clubs, volunteering or simply resting. McGill does provide financial support to its students. Based on university data, McGill offered more than $6.2 million in entrance scholarships to over 2,000 students in its most recent admission cycle. It also distributed $6.3 million in need- based entrance bursaries to 550 incoming students with average bursary amounts increasing in accordance to tuition status. Even though these programs make university possible for students who might otherwise struggle to attend, the existence of financial aid does not erase the larger question of whether the cost of university itself has become increasingly difficult to manage.
Quebec is not unfamiliar with this question. In 2012, thousands of students wore red felt or fabric squares and marched in what became known as the Printemps Érable, or Maple Spring. The protest was mainly organized to oppose planned increases to university tuition as well as concerns surrounding student debt and access to education. The movement secured a key victory in September 2012, when Pauline Marois’ newly elected Parti Quebecois government cancelled the planned tuition increases, fulfilling a central demand of the student strike. Fourteen years later, tuition remains part of the affordability debate but has now grown more pertinent alongside issues such as rising rent, food security, employment, residence costs, and the disparity of costs across many demographics of students.
Montreal is still less expensive than many other major North American university cities. Both these things can be true, while still keeping the door open for debate regarding affordability for the city’s student population. For an international student paying substantially higher tuition, a student relying on part-time work, or someone trying to cover rent without family support, life in the same city, at the same university, can look completely different.
If Montreal wants to continue defining itself as a student city, affordability should mean more than simply being cheaper than somewhere else. It should also mean that the students can realistically and comfortably afford to live and study here.