International Students Accuse Quebec of ‘Conning’ Them.

July 19, 2026. Montreal, QC. Over 100 students gathered on Sunday in front of a private college in Montreal to protest its closure after the Quebec government failed to renew its permit.

The protesters, mostly international students accompanied by some parents, expressed their frustration at being left stranded when the school announced its closure just over a week ago.

Leila Betatache and Feyrouz Chiheb, both mothers and students from Algeria, enrolled for a second degree at a private Montreal college just a day before the school’s permit was revoked. They had only just begun their classes when the closure occurred, and now they are struggling to transfer their degrees.

“There is no coherent or strategic plan being implemented,” Betatache said. “They sell us dreams, but the reality is far different from what they’re advertising.“

Both women attended the protest with their children. Chiheb shared the significant impact of the closure on her family. “I have five children; what am I going to do? We sold everything in our country, came here full of hope, to finish our studies, and to find work,” she lamented.

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The Collège supérieur de Montréal is among four private, subsidized colleges in the province that have had their permits suspended in recent weeks. The others include Herzing College and Veritas College of Technology in Montreal, and the Collège supérieur de Sherbrooke, in Sherbrooke, Quebec.

Some students were just weeks away from graduation when they learned they would not be able to complete their studies as planned. This was the case for Samia Chraibi, a Moroccan international student who was set to graduate from the Collège supérieur de Montréal this summer. “I basically stay up at night crying because my papers will expire on August 31,” she said. “I don’t have the right to work, and I don’t have the right to study.”

Ouazar Ghenima, another international student from Algeria at the Collège supérieur de Montréal, had only one exam and an internship left before completing her program to become a medical secretary. “We were all in shock; it happened all of a sudden,” she recalled. “We had made plans thinking we were almost done, that everything was fine, and now we don’t know what to do.”

The protesters gathered in front of the private college before marching to the offices of Quebec’s immigration ministry, demanding that the provincial government automatically transfer them to another institution where they can finish their studies.

The Quebec education ministry has not provided details on why the permits were not renewed. All it said in an emailed response to the local press is that the decision was made in accordance with private education laws. According to the ministry, the four colleges were informed on June 30 that their permits would not be renewed and had received warnings between late March and early May that their permits might not be extended.

Following the announcement of the closures, the education ministry reached out to students to offer alternative options for completing their studies. However, many students have reported that these solutions are inadequate and impractical. They indicated that when they reached out to the schools for clarification, they either received no response due to the summer break or were told they could only enroll halfway through the fall semester.

With their immigration status tied to their school, many students are anxious about being unable to renew their permits when they expire in just a few months or, in some cases, in as little as two weeks.