Whether you speak French, English, or a bit of both, Montreal can be the right place for you to pursue your higher education. The city, often regarded as Canada’s cultural capital, ranked sixth globally in the QS Best Student Cities Rankings 2019, ahead of any other city in entire North America.

Around 250,000 out of the 3.8 million residents of the Greater Montreal metropolitan area are students at universities or post-secondary colleges.

If these facts are making you consider Montreal as a potential destination for your higher education, you will definitely find this article useful. Here we have listed for you seven cheap universities and colleges in Montreal.

Which University Is the Cheapest in Montreal?

The university in Montreal that offers the cheapest tuition for international students would be Vanier College, which has set the international tuition fees to be CAD 12,240. Please realize that this amount is the minimum tuition fees that are being charged for international students, and sometimes the tuition fees for Vanier College can go up to as high as CAD 19,000 per year.

For domestic students, the institution that offers the cheapest tuition would be TAV College with tuition fees of CAD 1,340 per year. Whether you are a Canadian citizen or an international applicant, please remember that tuition fees are only just a small portion of your total cost of attendance since you need to also pay for your accommodation, food, and health insurance.

Check Also: Canada Programs for International Students

Which University Is the Cheapest in Canada?

The Canadian university that charges one of the cheapest tuition (CAD 11,500 Per Year) for international students would be Memorial University, which is also called Newfoundland and Labrador’s University. There might be several other good colleges that offer tuition even lower than this institution, but the location of Newfoundland offers cheaper prices for accommodation, which may be ideal for international students.

Cheap Universities in Montreal

1. Dawson College

  • Domestic Annual Tuition Fees: CAD $3,360 (USD $2,640)
  • International Annual Tuition Fees : CAD $13,240 (USD $10,420)

Dawson College is a 50-year-old public college sitting across around 12 acres of land in the Montreal suburb of Westmont. When founded in 1969, it only had 111 teachers tutoring 1,655 students. Presently, it has 10,000 students who are taught by 600 teachers. The English-language college offers as many as 30 programs. These are either a three-year career/technical program or a two-year pre-university program.

The programs at Dawson cover a broad range of study areas, including Environmental Science, Psychology, Interior Design, Computer Science Technology, and Radiation Oncology. The college’s Awards Office provides students with a variety of scholarships, bursaries, and awards, organized under two categories: Winter Semester Awards and Fall Semester Awards.

 

2. Concordia University

Concordia University came into being when a merger took place between Loyola College and Sir George Williams University in 1974. This cheap university in Montreal operates through the campuses of both institutions in Montreal. Its total enrolment currently stands at 51,903. Of them, 8,400 are international students representing 150 countries.

The comprehensive research university ranks 17th nationally and 462nd globally in the QS World University Rankings 2020. It is also the only Canadian university to make it to the QS Top 50 Under 50 2020.

Concordia offers over a couple of hundred undergraduate and graduate programs. The programs in Building Engineering, Kinesiology, Clinical Exercise Physiology, and Journalism are among its standouts.

The public university offers a wide range of scholarships and awards to its students, most of which don’t require any application. The Undergraduate Scholarships and Awards Committee awards them automatically in the Fall semester.

However, there are some scholarships and awards that do require an application to be considered for.

 

3. HEC Montreal

  • Domestic Annual Tuition Fees: CAD $2,620 (USD $2,060)
  • International Annual Tuition Fees: CAD $27,000 (USD $21,250)

Established in 1907, HEC Montreal was the first business school in the Great White North. It serves as a graduate school of the Université de Montréal. Its campus is situated at Montreal’s Côte-des-Neiges–Notre-Dame-de-Grâce borough.

The institution has a student population north of 14,000. Of them, around 4,300 are international students hailing from 155 countries.

According to the QS World University Rankings by Subject 2019, it is one of the top 100 business schools in the world, ranking fourth nationally.

Although HEC Montreal is a French-language institution, its Bachelor of Business Administration program provides students with bilingual study options. However, it has several programs at the graduate level that are offered entirely in English. The school, jointly with HEC Montreal Foundation, has hundreds of scholarships in store for its students every year, ranging from $1,000 to $17,500.

 

4.  Vanier College

  • Domestic Annual Tuition Fees: CAD $3,080 (USD $2,420)
  • International Annual Tuition Fees: CAD $12,240 (USD $9,630)

In 1970, just one year after Dawson had begun its journey as Quebec’s first English-language public college, Vanier College was founded as the second English-language public college in the province. It is sited at Montreal’s Saint-Laurent borough, which itself was a city until a merger in 2002.

This cheap university in Montreal offers 28 career/technical and pre-university programs in study areas like Nursing, Environmental and Wildlife Management, Architectural Technology, Liberal Arts, Music, and Commerce.

It has more than 6,700 full-time Diploma students, and around 2,000 part-time students attending credit and non-credit courses and programs. Students can apply for a number of external scholarships, ranging from $1,000 to $100,000.

 

5. Université du Québec à Montréal

Located in downtown Montreal, the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM) is a public university that predominantly uses French as the language of instruction.

It was founded in 1969 by merging a bunch of institutions, including École des Beaux-Arts de Montréal and Collège Sainte-Marie. It has a student population of nearly 39,000, including around 3,900 international students who come from 95 different countries.

UQAM facilitates over 300 undergraduate and graduate programs. Some of the courses in these programs have English as the language of instruction. However, there isn’t a single program that is taught completely in English. The university offers a variety of scholarships and bursaries to its students in collaboration with UQAM Foundation and many other outside organizations.

 

6. McGill University

McGill University ranks among the top 3 universities in Canada and the top 50 universities in the world in almost any of the recognized global university rankings. Beginning its journey way back in 1821, it is currently home to over 40,000 students. Of them, around 35 percent are international students hailing from over 150 countries. As many as eight Nobel laureates have studied at the university.

McGill offers more than 250 undergraduate programs and over 400 graduate programs through its 11 academic faculties and 14 schools. The university has been spending millions every year, precisely $32.6 million in 2018, to award its exemplary students with scholarships and to support students in need with financial aid.

 

7. TAV College

  • Domestic Annual Tuition Fees: CAD $1,340 (USD $1,050)
  • International Annual Tuition Fees: CAD $15,350 (USD $12,080)

The final university in our list of cheap universities in Montreal is TAV College, which is a government-accredited private college that came into being in 1995. Positioned at Montreal’s Cote des Neiges Snowdon district, it uses both English and French as the languages of instruction. Although the college has only a little more than 1,000 students in total, over 50 nationalities are represented at its campus.

At TAV, students get to enroll in any of its 15 career/technical and pre-university programs that cover study areas like Digital Marketing, International Trade, and Social Science. The college assists students who are unable to pay their tuition by awarding some scholarships and bursaries.

 

We hope that this article on cheap universities in Montreal was helpful. Make sure to also check out the Available Programs in Canada!

About the Author: Hyun Lee

Hyun is the founder at Global Scholarships. He has received a full-tuition scholarship at Birmingham-Southern College as well as $1,000 Burger King Scholarship for his undergraduate degree and has been offered a fully funded scholarship consisting of tuition, living stipend, and health insurance for computer science Ph.D. program at North Carolina State University. Read more about his scholarship journey here.

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