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

[Berlinerschnauzer]

So said my son’s dad on learning DS2 failed to be offered a place at Cambridge…
I don’t know enough to confirm whether it’s sour grapes or he actually has a point.
Was looking at figures for Oxbridge and was surprised to find that something like 60 odd percent of students (under and post grads) are international. For undergraduates it’s nearly a quarter.
Likewise Edinburgh has 30% international students and is one of the wealthiest unis.
Unlike lower tier unis which don’t have the same deep financial pockets and have to attract foreign students to survive, surely these unis don’t. They could be attracting home grown, talented students who in years to come will contribute massively to the economy rather than returning to their home countries and taking their skills with them. My question is does ex DP have a point or is he spouting bollocks
as per usual ?

The international students fees at my Uni (graduated in 2023) was twice the amount of UK.

As a domiciled Scottish student with funded tuition the most my high ranking uni was paid for me was about £1900 for the year.

Basically the international students funded my place. There are rumours (I've never searched if it's true) that the uni don't meet the quota of Scottish students because it costs them too much money and its more profitable to pay the fine and/or demonstrate no suitable applicants. Like I said no idea if it's actually true but it is a wealthy uni with a sizeable international student base.

Money

https://wonkhe.com/blogs/an-early-look-at-2023-24-university-finances/

All not as clear cut as some may like to think.

I

The international students fees at my Uni (graduated in 2023) was twice the amount of UK.

Yep. Glasgow, St. A, Edinburgh all 75% plus of fee income is from international students (UG+PG)

Ditto UCL, Imperial and LSE

It also makes me think university finances are a very complicated issue. Why are they all broke? Those with such large foreign student population are absolutely raking it in, income per student head is far, far higher than it was a few decades ago. Teaching staff aren't well paid, sadly. The financial position is very odd, to be honest, even if £9,500 fees per year per home student is less than it was worth in real terms 10 or 15 years ago.

DS1 is in his first year undergrad. He has 4 hours teaching per week. He also has lectures (for the whole year group) of 4 hours a week. The cost of providing the 4 hours direct teaching is approximately £220 per week, or £74 per student group of three. So his teaching costs £1,776 per year in direct pay. Double it for NI, employers' costs, etc, and it's £3,500 a year. Exam marking, library facilities, building maintenance and a multitude of other things add costs, obviously, but even so, it's hard to see quite where the money's being spent.

BIL says it depends - some Germans do English-medium masters degrees, especially if it is an international area of work, and they will need to speak English in their working lives (even if in Germany). Some are English-as-a-second-language international students, some are native English speakers.

Exam marking, library facilities, building maintenance and a multitude of other things add costs,

Counselling services, health service, libraries (journal subscriptions can run to 1000s per journal per annum, and my university spends millions each year on around 1500 database & digital subscriptions), Estates upkeep, accommodation subsidies, sports centre & sports subsidies, subsidies to student unions, electricity, gas, bursaries & scholarships, cleaning, nursery & chidcare subsidies & costs.

Think about what services are needed to run a market town or small city of around 30,000 residents ....

@Littoralzone I’m stunned by your response and if you weren’t so obviously exaggerating I’d be advising the parents in my grandsons year 12 group not to even consider the UK for the kids based on what you’ve said.

Are you aware of the industry out there faking these results

If there are so many of them and so many of the students with these dubious results are getting into UK universities it doesn’t say much at all about those letting it happen.

Or tried teaching students with supposedly adequate English and tried marking their exam scripts?

International students have an option of doing a years foundation course prior to starting their degree that can either be a general foundation course or one more relevant to their chosen degree subjects. If you are telling me that some of those doing these courses are going into year one of a degree and still don’t have the required level of English a year then it’s not saying much at all about those teaching them or the process that allows the students to go into year 1.

Or just held a conversation with them?

Oh dear. If only you knew. But suffice to say I live it on a daily basis and have done for 50 years. And if I had to guess the number? Well, It must surely be many 1000’s. Perhaps even 100’s of 1000’s.

There are huge numbers of students without adequate English attending UK universities. A PP even noted her university having to pay for translators

In the academic year 2022/23 there were 758,855 international students in HE in the UK and I’d be really interested to know roughly how many of the above students make up your huge number.

And the translators? Again, this says way more about the fact the students were on the course in the first place than it does about anyone else.

I’ve taken your post with a large pinch of salt but I do feel for the genuine professionals here who’ve read it and had such a number done on them by someone who claims to be one of their own.

@LondonLawyer thank you for answering my question.

University finances are complicated and you're hugely underestimating what needs to be paid for.
I'm also interested in where you got those figures from? Not to mention that 4 hours of teaching is on the low side and certainly not representative of the amount of teaching students get at my university.

With regards the cost of teaching - students take multiple modules which will be taught by different staff. Most courses will have multiple staff teaching who could be teaching across a range of course at both UG and PG level.
The cost of running a module includes preparation, teaching, assessment and tutorials. As well dealing with student emails and extension requires etc. There is a lot of background work.

And students aren't just paying for teaching. If you track the student journey through from beginning to end you can see how many teams are involved.

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

It's not just a 'few hours teaching and a library ticket' as someone said earlier in the thread.

https://www.bufdg.ac.uk/knowledge-hub/understanding-finance/

for anyone genuinely interested. Not for the Stop the Boats / Smash the Gangs / Get Brexit Done etc etc three letter soundbite aficionados.

I think it depends on the institution, I was at one of the Russell Group with a very high A level result requirement (or equivalent). The majority were UK educated or had IB in English.

I don't think that would be true at Oxford. However, since Brexit the balance of international students has shifted dramatically away from EU countries and towards countries that are English speaking, or where education is more likely to be in English.

No I think you're right. I'm not sure if Oxford still interview everybody, but that obviously gives you a much better idea of a student than A level results alone. Our institution didn't interview, except for students who would be given lower grade requirements if they attended schools located in disadvantaged areas. And I haven't worked there since Brexit.

I got the figures @SerenityNowSerenityNow from the link below. It gives the hourly cost per hour's teaching as £18.34, with a multiplier of 3, so the cost of teaching for the group of 3 students for 4 hours a week is £18.34 x 3 x 4 = £220 / week. That's £1,760 per student per year, as above,

https://www.seniortutors.admin.cam.ac.uk/files/new_supervisor_pay_rate.pdf

I doubled it for the NI, tax, facilities to teach in (etc) but even so, the teaching costs are apparently quite a low percentage of his home fees.

I’d say the more pressing issue is describing your son as a failure for not getting a place at Cambridge.

Cambridge is not representative of the whole HE sector.
The rate of pay for a lecturer and senior lecturer is higher than the numbers you've quoted. A reader or professor will much higher too.

You also only seem to be counting 4 hours of teaching when you say there were also 4 hours of lectures. This is on the low side for a first year UG student.

You've also not factored in preparation, individual tutorials or feedback and assessment. These are all part of teaching.

His four hours of teaching is the tutorials - it is two groups of three students, two hours for each subject. The multiplier is, I understand, to cover this (I could be wrong). The four hours of lectures are for 100-150 students, so even if the lecturer is being paid £500 an hour (including prep time) that's not a significant extra per-student cost, so included in the "double it for luck" £3,600 or so above.

However, I could be wrong, and I realise that a Cambridge set of figures isn't universal, it was just one I found. My premise was, however, that university funding / spending is a lot more complicated than just teaching costs, and I think we agree on that?

That table seems to be specifically payment for supos. Not for the actual salaries of lecturers, readers, professors ... and across the HE sector there are far more professors than there were in the past.

I got the figures from the link below. It gives the hourly cost per hour's teaching as £18.34

I’m retired(ish) now but the cost of my teaching time was costed at roughly three times that. That didn’t take into account any overheads, which can be absolutely huge in STEM.

Incidentally, I would be teaching the same group of students for more than five hours a week just on one module. They were taught several modules in a week.

Yes that’s what I assumed it is @ErrolTheDragon Hourly-paid tutors/lecturers are typically PhD students and are doing a few hours a week. The rates they’re paid don’t include research time or time for all the admin that goes with teaching.

Salaried academics get paid a lot more because we do a lot more and not all of it is face to face teaching.

https://www.hesa.ac.uk/news/28-01-2025/sb270-higher-education-staff-statistics

from just a couple of days ago. Simple to find.

Plus https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/staff/salaries

And broader core costs https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/finances/expenditure

@LondonLawyer As people have mentioned, the salary scale you are quoting is not for a lecturer, senior lecturer or professor. Those salary scales are much higher.
Not to mention you only appear to be counting face to face teaching. You've not taken into account preparation, feedback and assessment, 1:1 tutorials......all take up time!

And then there is all the other stuff that does into supporting the student through the university experience.