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

But what about all the international students who stay on and get jobs -that’s a job less for Brits - no one appears to record these numbers - once they have finished at uni they can stay on bring their families -that is costing the rest of us.

Not true.
An international student can apply for a Post Study Work Visa (now graduate visa) which allows them (and only them) to stay in the uk for 2 years to look for work.
After this they can only stay if they are employed and sponsored by an employer through the Skilled Worker Visa.
If they don't find work after the two years they must return home.

International students on undergraduate and post graduate taught programmes are not allowed to bring dependants anymore - this is party the reason international student numbers have declined! Some research degrees such as a PhD allow you to bring dependents but they're relatively small numbers.

My youngest son is currently in his 3rd year at Edinburgh Uni.
As a Scottish born citizen he pays no tuition fees. For Scottish Universities to be able to offer this to Scottish citizens, they rely on income generated by international students.
My son has a very diverse group of friends and a few are international students which I feel has given him the opportunity to meet people from other cultures & ethnicity backgrounds from countries he has not had the opportunity to visit yet.
My son worked very hard during covid and on his return to High school for 5th & 6th year.
He was in the top 1% for exam results in Scotland and yet he attended a High School which is within the bottom 10 of all High Schools in Scotland for exam results.
He was also offered a place at St Andrews but decided to go with Edinburgh as he commutes to Uni from home.
I would have been very disappointed for him if he had received no offers.
If your child has worked hard and met the entry requirements for his application could it be down to their personal statement on their application?. How does your child feel about not being offered a place at Cambridge?.

It is about money, international students pay more, but I think it is also a question of prestige to be able to say that a university prestigious enough to attract the best students worldwide.

The UK also benefits from foreign students who can help boost research and innovation in science, medical research, AI or engineering.

The harsh truth OP is that if your son was an outstanding applicant he would have got in.

Blaming foreign students is really not the way to go and that is not a good example to give a young person.

It just teaches them a sense of entitlement and the idea that foreign students or/and immigrants can be blamed for everything...

I don't know where you get the idea that Brookes is ranked 6 as a university? I've just done a quick check online: Complete University Guide, League Table 2025: Oxford Brookes 46th, University of Oxford 2nd. The 6th ranking is for teaching which has nothing to do with the prestige of the institution. They are simply not in the same class, Brookes is not even in the Russell Group. A young person who was considering the University of Oxford is very unlikely to consider Brookes.

This is entirely incorrect. If the government does anything to further reduce international student visas it will finish off many universities, resulting in less capacity across the country for domestic students.

Also it won't suddenly mean there is a surge in the number of UK students looking for places. Students with minimal A-levels or equivalent qualifications can pretty much always find a place at a university, just not the top tier ones. There aren't hundreds of students out there searching desperately for a university place. If what you mean is that there'll be more capacity at those top tier universities, well that's always going to be finite!

I know, I live in Oxford. OBU in not OXU which you will think of as Jesus/Christchurch etc but..

From Brookes Website

"We are ranked 6th in the UK for teaching (Times Higher Education Young University Rankings 2022), and among the world elite in 19 individual subjects (QS, 2023). Oxford Brookes is one of the UK's top 50 institutions (Guardian League Tables 2022)."

Data shows that very small numbers of students do this. The vast majority return home, if not immediately, then after they have worked for maybe two years.

It's undoubtedly easier to get a place on any particular course as an international student

Except if you bother to look at Cambridge admissions stats that doesn't appear to be true, @LondonLawyer

Thanks for that info - I can see that would be difficult. I hadn’t realised it was only a one year visa.

They stay on a post student work
visa for 1 year in the UK. After that international students cannot work here without sponsorship. Only occupations on the skills shortage list offer sponsorship.

I work in hospitality and we get many many international students who have come and studied Msc
in hospitality, worked for year here full time afterward but can only stay in the UK on sponsorship if a venue offers them a management role over £38k or slightly less if its a new entrant. Waiting staff for example are not on the list.

Its actually quite annoying. I have a really nice chap, he came here studied hard, got a masters in hospitality management at a top Uni. Works at a very well known 3 Michelin Star
restaurant as a Chef de Rang (waiter). His visa ends in April, the restaurant wont be able to
sponsor as they do not have a management role. So he has gained great experience but we wont be able to
use it here in the UK

• I can promise you that like Cardiff m, parts of brookes are closed because of this. Oxford is not as prestigious as you think.*

Oxford the town isn't, The University of Oxford is world ranking. Brookes is a completely separate institution.

But what about all the international students who stay on and get jobs -that’s a job less for Brits - no one appears to record these numbers - once they have finished at uni they can stay on bring their families -that is costing the rest of us.

I work in a school of medicine, but okay

Brookes is/was ranked 6, Oxford Uni is ranked 4. Brookes has just closed music and maths coirses due
to a decline in entrants for those subjects. The criteria on entry for those courses has changed slightly ar Ox
Uni meaning more
people have chosen the better "known"
option though there is a wider decline in those courses in general as Cardiff have done the same.

It absolutely does rely on the international students. 7.5% of them are international, but medical degrees are particularly expensive to run (same max home fee of £9,500 / yr as all degrees) and international fees vary according to the course, and are much higher for medicine.
International students will pay more than five times as much for medicine at UCL, more than 8 times as much at Cambridge.
At Cambridge, therefore, 200 medical students pay fees of £1,757,500 (185 home students paying £9,500 each) and £1,245,000 (15 international students, will vary slightly according to the college).

I can promise you that like Cardiff m, parts of brookes are closed because of this. Oxford is not as
prestigious as you think.

For Oxbridge you then have another 10-15K college fees

Maybe some finance masters/MBAs. In my field all the major universities (Oxford, LSE, imperial, Edinburgh) charge around £30-£35k.

It's undoubtedly easier to get a place on any particular course as an international student - the fees differential is massive. DS1 is at uni, and as a home student is paying £9,500 fees per year and a £450 college fee. The fee is the same for all courses for home students. For international students the cost per year varies massively depending on the course - international students reading medicine pay over £70,000 per year. International students pay an additional college fee of between £11,000 and £13,000 a year. So an international student on the cheapest undergrad course will be paying about £40,000 a year, and on the most expensive course about £72,500 a year. That's between four and seven times the home fee.

Much more than this - £50K or more

...actually OPs son is pretty amazing for a bodstandard state, now Ive actually bothered to read all her posts

If he is truly determined, maybe wait for his 4x A star and reapply to the other one, do something engineering related while he waits and more supra curricular

It must be very hard, knowing that he is truly talented, but if his love is indeed engineering, I. C. Is actually a very good substitute, as he surely must have a place there?

A lot of the Cambridge Mathmos, Scientists, Computer Scientists and Musicians come from abroad because they are the best in the world and Cambridge has enough international repute to allow only the best

If the OPs son has not excelled in his supra-curricular on at least a national level, chances are low. There's a lot of disappointed parents at this time of year.

No they aren’t. UK students and International students are different quotas.

They can charge them more money. It's as simple as that. Many UK students with AAA are rejected in favour of international students who sometimes even have slightly lower grades eg. AA* A.

It seems unlikely that Oxford Brookes are competing with Oxford University unless there are some confused students with poor research skills out there.