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

When fees were first introduced and then upped, the government assumed there would be competition between universities pushing down the fees they charged (the fees the government set are the maximum they can charge, not the amount they must). So universities with more perceived value would be able to charge more, whereas others would charge less to attract more students, Of course all the universities immediately charged the maximum.

My disabled DC1 went to a highly rated RG uni - he received virtually zero support so the fees cannot be justified by "support services". Also, pure maths doesn't need labs or libraries etc and the number of contact hours was appalling for the fees charged. I still shudder at the thought that we had to pay so much money for that.

Not in Scotland. My DC didn’t turn 18 until over halfway through their first year. It is sufficiently common that the Student bars have to be aware enough to keep a close eye out for 17 year olds as they are monitored. DC also got priority for student halls because of it.

The University of Edinburgh has had a major drop in financial reserves and has a new voluntary redundancy program. The Scottish Government pays very little for Scottish students (who don't pay fees themselves) so they need international students to cover costs.

This. Universities everywhere I know of are businesses and have been for years.

The extent of student support services isn't anything like those provided in the UK, so costs are lower. It's the same in other European countries (I can't comment much on outside Europe as I am less familiar with them). I used to work in a languages dept and our students would routinely contact us in the first week of so of their year abroad really upset at what the perceived as a lack of care from the host university (e.g., nobody would help them find somewhere to live as university staff just don't see it as part of their remit).

I'm from another European country and did my undergrad at home, and postgraduate degrees here. I remember being surprised at the level of expectation from my British student friends at what they expected the uni to do for them. Stuff that I would've assumed to be within the remit of the health service and things like that. Also, in my home country the state provides a greater proportion of the teaching costs to the unis so they don't need to charge students as much. I'm not sure about the level of state subsidy in Germany

Some universities are good. St Andrews sits at the top of various tables. But the different education system means most degrees are four years long instead of three - though A level students (and Advanced Higher) can often choose to skip the first year.

A 17-year-old would still be at school in the UK. They wouldn’t start university until 18 at the youngest. 19 if they took a gap year.

Once you make a factual error like this — and double down on it — it is hard to take you seriously.

Because all universities, without exception and especially our oldest and most prestigious ones, are a form of consumption. They are commercial exercises. They sell courses on the international market. They are a place our young go to to spend money, and pay for the privilege. Sorry if that sounds cynical but it's the conclusion I've come to. Lots of unis are struggling financially because they have lost out in the competition for foreign students.

Ah because they’re not massively wealthy already…and I say that as a senior finance professional at one of the unis you speak of!

international student fees are one of the only levers we have to increase income to cross subsidise. Research and domestic students do not cover their costs, ever.

I'm actually thinking about Scotland for my DC2, but only because of a particular course that offers combining music with any subjects including STEM. So there must be something good in Scottish education 😁

Well yes I was speaking generally about the Chinese students.

I'd personally have assumed that the UK would still be a more attractive proposition for that reason too. But the fall in applicants from India was also about the message that the change in rules sent out (that they weren't really welcome, basically)

The decline of the aristocracy was after the First World War. But if you think English education is bad, you should try the SNPs version of Scottish Education… Though in terms of maturity lots of Scottish students start university age 17 (or occasionally 16) - no drunken freshers week for my DC!

Yes, the UK is losing a lot of students to Australia in particular

The fees for international students are absolutely staggering. Also, well known universities can attract the most talented students from all over the world.

@LolaPeony I don't think you are wrong re. the H1B considerations and I am probably unusual but my path was studying at US universities (undergrad + doctorate level postgrad) but ended up choosing to move to the UK to work after to be closer to family (on US pay scale, thank goodness). The H1B uncertainty played a role in deciding to not stay there but hadn't given any thought to the UK's immigration system. But shouldn't the controls be tightened at point, if getting work permits is that easy, rather than limiting university spots?

Mind, had I graduated a few years later, I could apparently have just turned up in the UK for two years without a job offer: https://www.gov.uk/high-potential-individual-visa

All policy choices.

I'm surprised they rejected an applicant from a "state school in need for improvement", he would've improved their stats.

Anyway, it's not about grades for English qualifications. You can be brilliant by British standard but nowhere near the standard of international competition. I know this because DC has been competing at national level from 8, but their Asian friends would wipe the floor with them 😂 (and rightly so as their work ethics is exemplary).

I'm surprised by that. Has that remained the case?

@Onlyonekenobe I Certainly when my ds was there 12 years ago a number boys went to university abroad. However, I don’t know about the last 3 years.
Eton has quite a few international pupils so they may apply to US universities and also to universities in their home countries.

That’s not completely accurate with the ages. In England and Wales, most kids are 16 when they finish their general education. The only ones who are still 15 were born at the end of the academic year - so July or August. Same story with A Levels - the vast majority are 18 when they sit the exams and all of them are 18 or over when they start university.

it’s interesting what you say about lack of maturity. These days, secondary schools spoon feed children to ensure they get the best grades - schools have to report publicly on this and it ruins their reputation if grades are poor, so the staff are massively incentivised to ensure high grades. Back in my day, we were sent home a few weeks before exams and told to revise. For my DCs, the teachers guided most of the revision and my DCs had to go to school right up until the exams started.

Similarly, I think parents are way more protective these days. Most children have never been on a bus by themselves or been to a shop alone until they go to secondary school. When I was growing up, it was normal to wander far and wide, but it was much safer than now.

UK students are welcome to apply for this masters course and we do have a handful of UK students taking it. But it's just not a programme that sees many applicants from the UK. Our other masters degrees have a different balance of applicants/students. To a certain extent, the demographic is a self-perpetuating one as the uni sees that the most fruitful market is international, so focuses recruitment and marketing activities for that course in that market as its a better return on investment.

Of course we take academic qualifications into account for admissions. I don't think there was anything in my post that implied we don't.

Not saying there isn't cheating involved but my written French is a lot better than my spoken French! Some of that could be down to confidence levels with the language or just the environment (and I get the sense, based on some junior Chinese colleagues, that the Chinese education system does not encourage participation or taking initiative in quite the same way).

So true! I was baffled by the international students (predominantly Chinese) studying on my masters course who didn’t seem to be able to hold a conversation in English, didn’t contribute anything to tutorials but were able to use all the course literature (written in English), read substantial and numerous texts and source material (written in English) and then submit stunning, highly graded essays (written in English) without any difficulty at all.

At the Russell Group Uni I work at, we are finding it difficult to keep up with essay farms, chat GPT and A.I., all of which we know the Chinese students use, but are finding it difficult to prove.

There's been a lot of nonsense talked in this thread, such as overseas students not attending which is not true due to attendance monitoring, but it us true that the English language level of Chinese students can be terrible.

I think Unis MUST know that English language certificates are subject to large scale fraud at the application stage, bit I'm not sure how much appetite there is to tackle the problem and commit financial suicide by dramatically decreasing their numbers of Chinese students .

LOL Tesla, the poster child of Western innovations, uses CATL and BYD batteries (and other stuff developed by the Chinese). So who's using whose research? 😂

I wonder how German universities manage charging both home and international students the same couple of hundreds euro per semester...
A great mystery indeed! 😂