French and English Universities

Montreal is a popular city amongst students not only from Quebec and Canada, but also those hailing from all over the world. The city is home to several universities, and the reputation of these schools draws so many students to the island that Montreal boasts the greatest ratio of post-secondary students per 100 residents in all of North America. These universities are also unique in that the majority of them offer classes entirely in French.

English Universities

There are two Anglophone universities in Montreal. Concordia University formally came into being in 1974 when Sir George Williams University and Loyola College merged under the re-organization of Quebec’s educational system. This accounts for the somewhat unusual campus arrangement – the main Concordia campus is downtown, whereas the Loyola campus occupies a sizeable patch of real estate in the western part of Notre-Dame-De-Grace. The school runs a shuttle bus so that students can access both sets of buildings without any hassles. Concordia has 180 undergraduate programs in Arts, Science, Engineering and Fine Arts, as well as a separate business school. There are also 70 programs for those pursuing post-graduate degrees.

McGill University has a slightly longer history in the Montreal area. It was founded in 1821, and occupies a beautiful downtown campus that sprawls out to include a teaching hospital, hockey arena and football stadium, as well as historically significant main buildings and lawns. 300 different diploma programs are offered, and the school also has an internationally renowned school of Medicine. McGill has an ivy-league reputation in Canada and perennially places very well in national university rankings.

French Universities

Montreal is home to the largest Francophone university in the world, Université du Québec à Montréal (UQAM). UQAM is the central hub of a network of universities in Quebec and has a student population of 60 000. The school offers a full range of graduate and post-graduate degrees in Arts, Education, Science, Social Sciences and Languages. The main campus of the school is located in the Quartier Latin neighborhood, just east of the downtown core. The school has been matriculating students since 1969.

The next largest university catering to Montreal’s French-speaking population is the University de Montreal. While smaller than UQAM, the school does boast 55000 students, including a faculty of Medicine. Two other Francophone universities can be found just off the island, with Université Laval located to the north in Laval and Université de Sherbrooke recently opening a satellite campus on the South Shore in Longueuil.

Tailor made for students

Given that Canadian universities are heavily subsidized by the government, the cost of attending one of these schools is much lower than many other countries. Combined with Montreal’s reasonable cost of living, including rent, food and health care, this makes the city very appealing to foreign students. Not only does Montreal attract francophone students from many different parts of the world, it is also a strong draw for American students seeking to escape the high cost of their post-secondary studies. Some schools in the US charge 5 times what it would cost to attend McGill or UQAM in tuition alone.