Author: By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff

Date: SUNDAY, January 10, 1999

Page: A1

Section: National/Foreign

"Cost wasn't the big factor. The academic program was, by far," said Brown, 23, who graduated from Nova Scotia's Dalhousie University last year with a bachelor's in marine biology, and is working on a master's degree. "But the cost of studying in Canada is certainly an important side bonus."

As tuition rates continue to climb in the United States, increasing numbers of American students are heading north to attend Canadian universities, seeking higher education from schools with standards equivalent to those in the United States but with less-punishing fees.

Meanwhile, Canada's institutions are for the first time aggressively courting US high schoolers and other college-bound Americans, with some success.

"Our undergraduate applications from the US are up by 27 percent in the past year," said Anne Roussell, executive director of recruitment and liaison at Montreal's McGill University, one of Canada's most prestigious schools.

"That's partly the result of our increased recruiting effort in about 20 US states, with heavy focus on New England," she said. "But it also reflects that we offer high academic standards, degrees that are internationally recognized, and a university system similar to the American system. Plus, a price cheaper than offered in the US."

One of history's first intercollegiate football games pitted McGill against Harvard in 1874. Although the two schools no longer tussle over the pigskin, Quebec's preeminent English-language university enjoys an academic ranking in a league with some of the best US private institutions.

But when it comes to costs, McGill and other top-flight Canadian schools are in another league altogether. And for American students, that difference is becoming an important attraction.

Tuition, room, and board for an American undergraduate student at McGill, whose 178-year-old campus is in the heart of one of North America's most cosmopolitan cities, runs about $10,000 a year in US dollars. That's twice as much as a Canadian pays, but still a deal.

A year at Dartmouth College, by comparison, costs roughly $29,500, while a year of undergraduate study at New York's Vassar, including room and board, runs to $28,000. Tuition alone at the average private university in the United States is $14,508.

Tallman, who graduated last year from Phillips Exeter Academy, nearly chose Vassar, and also considered Cornell University, before finally deciding on McGill.

"It was really close, and I weighed it hard," said the 18-year-old first-year student. "But in the end, McGill just seemed to offer a little bit more of what I wanted in terms of academics and social atmosphere."

Tuition at Canadian schools is inexpensive by American standards because all universities are public institutions, with most costs for education borne by taxpayers, not student fees or alumni gifts. The best tuition bargains are for undergraduates since many Canadian graduate programs -- especially in business, engineering, and medicine -- charge fees close to those of American graduate schools.

Other costs associated with higher education -- from books to housing to a night out at the pub -- are these days a better deal for Americans, as the value of the Canadian dollar has dropped to historic lows against US currency.

Interviews with American students studying at institutions from Nova Scotia to British Columbia show that their reasons for choosing Canada vary hugely.

Madeiros, 19, was drawn to Dalhousie because it boasts one of North America's best bagpipe bands. "Canada, with its strong Scots traditions, is really the place to play with some world-class pipe bands while working for that diploma," said Madeiros, who plays side drum. "My family loved the cheaper tuition. I loved the pipe bands. So here I am in Nova Scotia."

At Dalhousie, tuition for an American undergraduate is roughly $4,600 a year, with room and board running to about $3,600. Out of a student body of 12,763, only 98 are from the United States -- still a 20 percent increase over last year.

A similar pattern is emerging across Canada. About 3,000 Americans are studying at Canadian universities, a 10 percent increase from the 1997-98 academic year. Despite the extraordinary economic, cultural, and blood ties between the two countries, it is only in the past few years that the United States has supplanted Hong Kong and France as the country of origin for the largest number of foreign students in Canada.

Nonetheless, the numbers of Americans studying here remain small compared with the 23,000 Canadians attending colleges and universities in the United States. The lopsided flow of students south is part of an overall "brain drain" that Canada is increasingly anxious to redress.

"There's the old reality that Canadians know America more than Americans know Canada, and that makes it difficult for Canadian schools to attract the best and brightest students from the states," said Robert J. Giroux, president of the Ottawa-based Association of Universities and Colleges of Canada. "But there is a new emphasis on recruiting American students."

The big selling points of Canadian schools, he said, are high academic standards, a safe campus environment in a nation with a much lower crime rate than the United States, and lower costs.

Also, for some American students, there is the attraction of attending school in a foreign country -- without venturing too far abroad.

"I really wanted the experience of living in another culture," said Shane Lacharite, 22, of Shelburne, Vt., who graduated last year from Bishop's University in Lennoxville, Quebec, and who has studied in France.

"Partly the draw was my French-Canadian roots. I wanted some sense of the culture where my ancestors came from," he said. "A lot of Americans dismiss Canada as just a snowbound, boring version of the US. But it's foreign enough to feel different, and I found it more exciting than just going to another state."

American guidance counselors nonetheless raise a few red flags about Canada. Classes tend to be larger than in the United States, and the ratio of faculty to students is often lower, which they say can result in a less personalized education.

Perhaps most serious is the name-recognition problem. Some American employers, counselors warn, will be unfamiliar with Canadian universities, even those schools rated by commonly used American college guides.

But that appears to be a non-issue for major US companies, such as Goldman Sachs or Microsoft, which actively recruit on Canadian campuses. And employers in New England tend to be familiar at least with those schools in the neighboring provinces of Quebec, New Brunswick, and Nova Scotia.

"Employers mostly seemed interested by the fact I had international exposure," said Lacharite, who found a job in the Vermont-based financial division of a multinational corporation. "If anything, it seemed a plus."

One big impediment to study in Canada, especially for cash-strapped students, is that Americans will find it virtually impossible to secure part-time jobs because of tough Canadian work permit laws. Quebec is especially intransigent, while the Maritime Provinces suffer from such high levels of unemployment that there are few jobs to spare.

Government budget cuts in Canada have put an end to some student subsidies, squeezing most of the nation's 89 universities and forcing them to look south for new students as never before.

McGill has teamed with two other top Canadian schools, Queen's University and the University of Toronto, both in Ontario, to make marketing tours at US high schools and college fairs in major US cities.

Others are trying a more direct approach. Ontario's University of Guelph recently started recruiting American high schoolers with mass mailings of a brochure showing a snow-caked college student: "So you think you know Canada, eh? Well . . . think again."

The University of Windsor, in Ontario adjacent to Detroit, has taken out advertisments in Michigan newspapers: "You can study here and be home for supper." The school also just slashed tuition rates for Americans in half, to $3,500 a year, making its costs competitive with the average "in-state" tuition for US public universities.

"It seemed ridiculous that at a university minutes away from this huge US city, we had fewer than a dozen American students,' said John Carrington, spokesman for the University of Windsor, which hopes to eventually enroll 300 Americans. "It benefits both our societies to have a two-way flow of young minds."

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