Why do our most prestigious and wealthiest Unis accept so many international students ?

@SerenityNowSerenityNow no, my Dad wasn't a professor of chemistry- that was my ham fisted attempt to reply to another poster who said they knew all about university finance because their Dad was a professor. The bolding didn't work!

I spend a lot of my time explaining the realities of university finance to people in positions similar to yours. Let's just say some are better than others.

@angela1952 exactly.
At my institution you wouldn't even become a professor without some leadership/management points which would obviously include an understanding of finance.

Yes, all the professors where I worked had to be involved in finance, it was a significant part of their role. In many institutions they had to be pulling in significant research money to be appointed to a chair, unless it was funded in another way.

This is very true, institutions have been opting out of undergraduate courses in subjects such as physics, chemistry and engineering which have labwork and are too expensive for them to continue. This has been happening since the 1990s. Even world-renowned colleges like Imperial must be struggling to keep courses going, especially if they specialise in STEM.
Many postgraduate courses in these subjects have very high fees and must be largely carried by the fees paid by international students. They couldn't be run if this didn't happen.

Yes but it’s to survive and to enable home students to have places.

Your dad might not, but you can't say that of all professors.
I'm about 2 years off becoming a professor and as a Head of Department I have to know about university finances. It's a huge part of my job.

My Dean, and Associate Deans are all professors and know about university finances too.

This is very true. Though not sure any British universities could be called wealthy, except the Oxbridge colleges with thousand year old endowment funds. Others in the top tier would be better described as financially stable if they are lucky. The lower tier universities just cannot attract the foreign students prepared to pay high level fees and are consequently at high risk of financial collapse..

It's not just the lower tier (as you describe them) that are in financial difficulty. There are a significant number of Russell Group and highly ranked universities who are facing significant financial challenges.

I'm actually a professor. I know quite a lot about university finances.

Yes I can confirm university finances are very complicated! They carry out many other activities apart from teaching and the income is often specified to only be used in financing particular activities. So yes may seem to be huge income but the cost of financing the many activities is also huge.

No, Imperial is not rolling in cash and yes, they do very much need the income from international students. Especially as they are almost exclusively offering STEM courses which are of course much more expensive to run than arts & humanities courses. Read the latest financial statements, it's all there.

Have a look at the latest financial statements for universities. A lot are running deficits which will lead to financial collapse if something doesn't change. None are wealthy.

My father is a professor of Chemistry,

Yeah, believe me the professors know nothing about university finances.

This is very true. Though not sure any British universities could be called wealthy, except the Oxbridge colleges with thousand year old endowment funds. Others in the top tier would be better described as financially stable if they are lucky. The lower tier universities just cannot attract the foreign students prepared to pay high level fees and are consequently at high risk of financial collapse.

I think Eastern that the DC got all the way to the interview stage. At which point many decisions will be on the very finest margins. It’s a disappointment for the DC but hopefully he has some alternative offers from other top end unis - which with that grade profile, you’d hope he’d receive.

I haven't rtft as long but your dc's grades stood out op

They are high, and sound high enough for Oxbridge. Not sure why they were not successful. I suppose not everyone is with those grades

Noone expects to learn much academically in 1 year masters,

Erm.......yes they do. That's literally the point 🙄

Noone expects to learn much academically in 1 year masters,

Tell me you know nothing about university teaching without telling me you know nothing about university teaching ...

I don't think the "quality" is the main reason why there are so many overseas masters students, it is mostly language and prestige.

Noone expects to learn much academically in 1 year masters, and the big part of learning comes just from seeing a different way how the stuff can be done (which is useful, but any institution would do), but it works as a CV boost if used well. And while more European countries now offer teaching in English, going for the UK means not having to deal with another language -language of the country in which the university is.

I spoke to a UK student who was being withdrawn due to failing most of his course. He kicked off about having to do maths on an economics degree so obviously hadn’t read about the course and claimed we should let him progress because his parents had paid his whole second year rent up front and couldn’t get a refund.

No undergraduate doesn’t get in to Oxford or Cambridge due to preferential treatment for overseas students. The academics who run the courses decide who get a place, trust me they would literally tell the management and administration to fuck right off if they try to interfere. It is a process based academic merit and potential which is why the administrators are kept right out of it.

People will always look for reasons other than they won’t as good as the other candidates on the day.

Postgraduates - the reason there are so many overseas students is simply the UK attract significant numbers due to the quality of courses but don’t have the number of people doing them from here of the same quality.

I wouldn’t have the same confidence of universities where the admissions process is not academic lead however.

Numbers for undergraduates and where they are from are published. Latest figures for 2021 to take indicate less than 15% of undergraduates were non UK

These figures are for additional “supervisions" @LondonLawyer. They are horribly low rates often paid to extremely qualified contract researchers, for helping out with teaching (another sad story). Supervisions, or tutorials in case of Oxford. For each module, the colleges pay for “additional tuition” often in groups of 2-4, three or four times a term. Sometimes a student would need more and this can also be arranged.

Then there are actual lectures - for which there are permanent academic staff, paid more (but a lot less, often about >80% less, than EU or USA). Then there are labs, and various other modes of teaching covered by different types of staff.

Furthermore, teaching is not the only cost that your tuition fee covers. Someone posted additional activities / operations that tuition fees cover. These included:

Marketing
Student recruitment
Admissions
Course administrators
Student finance
Timetabling
Registry
Careers
Placements
Library (staff and books, journals etc)
IT (staff and software licenses)
Disability
Well being
Academic skills
External examiners
Graduation events team
Alumni team
Cleaners
Catering
Estates
Energy bills

On top of this I would like to add:

Subsidised student accommodation (=cheaper cos colleges make the shortfall)
Subsidised meals (=cheaper cos departments and colleges pay, often 50% rate)
Technicians - e.g. labs
Teaching materials (for lab based work for example, Biochemical and Medical lab materials are substantial)
Gym
Some courses have additional modes of teaching - which involve placements, student visits / tours, all of this is paid by the university
.....and others I am probably forgetting about...

Hope this helps clarify some of these myths that £9K are enough :D and explains why we are running at a deficit. Once more would like to emphasise, we are a non-profit making entity. Any surplus (there really isn’t any), goes to improving student experience as per above....While I do understand this may not be obvious, the idea that we are a business looking to make profit off the back of students is a bit insulting as most of us are working with limited budgets and low pay, trying our best to give students a good education whilst balancing out an impossible workload with research and ever increasing admin... And then listening to Trump bashing “experts" because they dare talk about the climate change disaster coming our way trying to offer some solutions he doesnt like. Anyway rant over, going back to work...

@angela1952 in fairness, I've had UK students with a similar attitude.

I remember one student who felt the need to constantly remind me how much he was paying me to teach him. He expected me to drop everything every time he wanted a tutorial, including my PhD viva!
He put in a complaint about me when I was off sick, went to my HoD saying I wasn't teaching him the correct content!

littoralzone
And are you saying that universities are in cahoots with students to pass them because a community back home paid their fees?

We had this too, I particularly remember a bright but lazy overseas student who'd not attended much and was appalled to be awarded a 2.2. Her fees had been paid by her very wealthy family and she felt that they had "bought" her degree for her. Utterly laughable, which was explained to her by the Chair of our Exam Board when she made a complaint.
She got into the course on her own merits, being very well educated, qualified and speaking excellent English as well as feeling exceptionally entitled.

Sorry but I can'r find Littoralezone but I only want to comment on two aspects : One: fake results in home country. I have lived in 6 countries in Africa and Asia. Everywhere, the best students got no help at all from the Government but dumbb or bright, most of the sons of the Presidents and Ministers set off for University often with full scholarships from home or USAID etc. I often worked coaching them in English and they all tried very hard but we were often pressured to give unwarranted diplomas.

It was just the same for the local Universities. If a studnet belonged to the tribe or caste of someone important, the professors were obliged to make sure they did well.

The saddest thing was the disservice being done to the countries they came from. Brilliant medical students ended up in the bush doling out aspirin and the least able in an operating theatre doing the best they could which could be pretty dire.

For those studying in the UK for example, the most interesting data would be how many fell by the wayside after their first year.

@Barbadossunset that figure is central university finances, not the colleges so is a rather incomplete picture.