At what cost?
On November 3, 2023, the University of Ottawa announced the International English Scholarship that will provide “average-based renewable scholarships for students from Africa, Indonesia, Vietnam, China, South Korea, India or Bangladesh studying in English” at the beginning of the fall 2024 term.
International anglophone students have the potential to earn both an entrance scholarship and excellence scholarships for maintaining an average of 90 per cent in their field of study.
“It will be offered for the first time in September 2024,” Jesse Robichaud, spokesperson for the University of Ottawa commented. “Since September 2022, we have been offering a scholarship for newly admitted students studying in English in some specific programs and coming from African countries. This scholarship goes in the same direction, with additional programs and countries.”
The scholarship amounts are differentiated for students based on country of origin and program. Robichaud provided reasoning for both the genesis of the scholarship, as well as an explanation behind this variation.
“We have programs that attract many international students… and certain programs that attract fewer students. With this scholarship, we aim to diversify our student population in other programs.”
Robichaud also reiterated the university’s awareness of the financial challenges many international anglophone students face, with this scholarship also aiming to provide students with some assistance.
Robichaud also provided acceptance rates of international students over the past 5 years. Note that the highlighted boxes are areas where the previous English scholarship was offered in 2022 and 2023. Based on the data provided, it is difficult to say the former English scholarship had an affect on the acceptance rates of international students when compared to non-scholarship programs.
One thing to note is the large spikes across all faculties between 2021 and 2022, with most of the programs in the science faculty seeing an increased enrolment rate of at least 20 per cent, and some as high as 100 per cent.
When looking at social sciences, the largest faculty at the university, there have been stark increases in public administration and sociology over the past five years.
| Cohorts | ||||||
| 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | ||
| Faculty | plan_descr | ENRL/ADMT | ENRL/ADMT | ENRL/ADMT | ENRL/ADMT | ENRL/ADMT |
| GENIE | Chemical Engineering | 21% | 5% | 7% | 35% | 40% |
| Civil Engineering | 13% | 14% | 0% | 36% | 57% | |
| GENIE Total | 18% | 7% | 4% | 36% | 49% | |
| GEST | Accounting | 23% | 35% | 14% | 24% | 35% |
| Business Technology Management | 0% | 5% | 8% | 15% | 37% | |
| Finance | 15% | 16% | 20% | 16% | 19% | |
| Human Resources Management | 33% | 25% | 13% | 27% | 50% | |
| International Management | 15% | 29% | 17% | 10% | 34% | |
| Marketing | 24% | 29% | 14% | 23% | 24% | |
| GEST Total | 18% | 22% | 15% | 18% | 30% | |
| SCIEN | Biochemistry | 31% | 20% | 28% | 31% | 20% |
| Biology | 16% | 5% | 17% | 20% | 45% | |
| Biomedical Science | 22% | 29% | 23% | 26% | 43% | |
| Biopharmaceutical science | 56% | 29% | 9% | 33% | 50% | |
| Chemistry | 0% | 20% | 13% | 33% | 14% | |
| Environmental Geoscience | 100% | 100% | ||||
| Environmental Science | 50% | 33% | 50% | 67% | 63% | |
| Financial Math and Economics | 31% | 27% | 11% | 42% | 32% | |
| Geology | 0% | 100% | 0% | 50% | 100% | |
| Geology Physics | 0% | 0% | 0% | 100% | ||
| Mathematics | 5% | 7% | 20% | 55% | 25% | |
| Mathematics and Economics | 0% | 0% | 0% | 33% | 25% | |
| Physics | 0% | 18% | 0% | 31% | 0% | |
| Physics-Mathematics | 25% | 17% | 0% | 17% | 0% | |
| Statistics | 0% | 0% | 33% | 0% | 27% | |
| SCIEN Total | 19% | 21% | 19% | 32% | 36% | |
| SSAN | Food/Nut. Sciences | 0% | 31% | 33% | 30% | |
| Health Sciences | 12% | 39% | 12% | 19% | 13% | |
| Human Kinetics | 29% | 25% | 0% | 0% | ||
| SSAN Total | 16% | 30% | 15% | 22% | 16% | |
| SSOC | Env. Economics and Publ. Pol. | 0% | 0% | 25% | 0% | |
| Intern. Economics and Develop. | 17% | 0% | 11% | 63% | 82% | |
| Internat. Develop. and Global. | 10% | 40% | 20% | 45% | 46% | |
| Mathematics and Economics | 33% | 50% | 0% | 0% | ||
| Political Sc. and Public Adm. | 20% | 40% | 0% | 0% | 0% | |
| Political Science | 35% | 20% | 22% | 5% | 38% | |
| Psychology | 9% | 23% | 13% | 10% | 17% | |
| Public Administration | 50% | 50% | 10% | 21% | 54% | |
| Sociology | 0% | 0% | 11% | 29% | 9% | |
| SSOC Total | 16% | 24% | 15% | 18% | 31% | |
| Grand Total | 18% | 22% | 16% | 24% | 32% | |
Credit: Jesse Robichaud / University of Ottawa.
While the scholarship aims to both reward and support international students for their continued academic excellence, it has been criticized for not providing them with sufficient financial support, especially with the university announcing a 5-7 per cent tuition hike for international students following the application deadline.
“The more [the U of O] raises tuition, the higher the likelihood of students transferring.” Anna Rezaigue, International House coordinator spoke on the situation. “The timing of [the U of O’s announcement about the tuition hike this year, after most university applications had closed, was disheartening. Many had to switch because they could no longer afford [the U of O.”
While the International English Scholarship offers less than its Francophone counterpart, Rezaigue spoke on the effect this scholarship is having amidst everything happening right now, emphasizing the point that the University “reduced the French bursary and introduced an English counterpart.”
“I’m not fundamentally against this bursary, but I’m against it at this moment,” she said. “Both [the U of O and its students can’t bear it right now. With inflation, rising living costs, and continually increasing tuition, it’s becoming unbearable. The timing of this scholarship implementation couldn’t be worse. What [the university] really needs is a decrease in tuition. Realistically, we understand that might not happen, but at the very least, we’re asking for a freeze in tuition hikes for the coming years.”
Correction: This article was updated (03/08, 12:57) to properly format the cohorts table, emphasizing the admission growths of the programs.
