Students, go to college in Canada

A few years old but good to know

College costs push Americans to Canada

Friday, October 4, 2002 Posted: 12:53 PM EDT (1653 GMT)

(AP) -- Attracted by relatively low tuition costs, high academic standards and campuses set in urban centers and spectacular countryside, a small but fast-growing number of American students are choosing to spend their college days in a foreign country -- Canada.

The Canadian Embassy in Washington estimates that enrollment at major Canadian schools by U.S. citizens has risen by at least 86 percent over the past three years, to about 5,000 students.

"I absolutely love it here," said Amorette Howland, a senior at Acadia University in Wolfville, Nova Scotia, a community of 3,800 people about an hour's drive from the provincial capital of Halifax.

A 13-hour journey from home in Enfield, Connecticut, Howland was attracted by the small-town feel of Wolfville -- and when she learned that tuition included a new IBM laptop computer.

Her parents were more impressed by Acadia's academic standards; a minimum combined math and verbal SAT score of 1,100 is required for American students seeking admission. (There is no equivalent college entrance exam for Canadian high school students, who are judged for admissions based on grade point averages.)

Montreal's McGill University has lured nearly 1,600 Americans north of the border, including sophomore Patrick Cournoyer, who picked it over the University of Vermont and Cornell University.

McGill's international student tuition fee is $7,000 per year in U.S. dollars. With room and board, McGill officials estimate a student from the states can attend school in Montreal for a total of $12,000 annually.

"Financially, it wasn't anything to even think about," Cournoyer said. "It's so exorbitant the amount of money you pay to go to an American school."

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