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 figures I found quoted 1 in 6 are American
But that doesn't mean they got their place purely because they were wealthy and American.

Exactly. We all understand that.

So it’s puzzling that so many otherwise switched on and intelligent people can’t grasp the same thing about universities.

And just because I’ve been a Latin a hospital, I wouldn’t presume to tell experienced medicos that their informed knowledge and experience about the NHS is rubbish, because they differ from my occasional encounters with a doctor.

But the equivalent happens on so many HE threads on MN.

I didn’t say it was. In fact I didn’t comment at all except to say the figures I found quoted 1in 6 are American

Anything else is on you and the original poster.

Just to add - I’m very sorry my post sounds so snippy Serenity.

No worries @Weepixie

You didn’t deserve it. And again, my apologies.

I started this sub-conversation by saying, "It also makes me think university finances are a very complicated issue. Why are they all broke?" So the kick-off was that it is a very complicated issue. Cue several posts about how people don't understand it's a very complicated issue...

However, continuing from the suggestion that it's not clear why universities are broke, and continuing with Cambridge as that's where I took the initial teaching figures from, I note that Cambridge doesn't understand why it's broke, it's unclear where its money has gone.

Cambridge is due to record a £53m deficit for the last year, with an internal report claiming that “there is no clear understanding of what has happened” to the University’s finances.

“The Board has sought explanations for the deficit over and above the explanations applicable to all Higher Education institutions. However, worryingly this has not been fully traced to source, with the result that there is no clear understanding of what has happened, or why,” the report states.

The board laid part of the blame for the projected deficit on a major increase in administrative staff since 2016. The number of non-academic contracts rose 29 per cent to 5,875 over that period, it said.

@LondonLawyer I appreciate that you acknowledge the complexity but you also haven't been particularly receptive to people challenging your perceptions.

I also think you can't use Cambridge to represent the whole sector.
Most universities know exactly what has happened to their finances. In fact, my Vice Chancellor is currently delivering talks to staff outlining our financial situation in great detail. And i know the same is happening elsewhere.

A levels are more specialised that the basic US school qualifications and, according to the British Council, are similar to the American Advanced Placement courses which are themselves equivalent to first-year courses of America's four-year bachelor's degrees.
If American students go to a university in Scotland (most of which I believe have a four year course) they do a first, more general, year which would make up for any shortcomings. The Scottish system is more like that in the US and American students are possibly better fitted to their courses than the three year degrees which are more common in the rest of the UK.

I don't think that Cambridge finances work in the same way as other universities as their money mostly comes from investments which obviously haven't done well recently. You can't extrapolate and say that because they aren't clear on what has happened nobody is.

One of the issues set out in a historical analysis of universities is that the UK went for a "uniquely expensive" model of expanding higher education after the 1940s - the Oxbridge medieval model of the Studium Generale was taken as the blueprint for all universities, including the redbricks and plate glass universities, and later the 1992+ polytechnics when converted to universities.

Even before the First World War, universities (other than Oxbridge, which was different) were largely funded by either the state or local authorities, fees making up well under half of universities' income, unusually between a quarter and a third. The University Grants Committee from 1919 carried this pattern on until 1989, and its abolition.

So the complexity discussed, the running of an institution which is essentially not just a community but a town of 20,000 or 30,000 people, as set out above, arises from not having different layers of institutions, doing and attempting different things. In that sense the UK is an outlier in international higher education terms.

Other developed countries appear to have a far greater variety of universities or tertiary education facilities; in the USA for example, the Ivy League pattern and campus idea is not replicated across the entire sector. It looks as if part of the financial issue arises from trying to run a champagne university structure (with all the elements mentioned above) on beer funding for a massively expanded student body?

Furthermore, the prestige of the residential model, as shown by the campus universities, meant that universities not only had to pay for a great expansion of university staff, and for expensive laboratories and libraries, but also for student accommodation and social, welfare and sporting facilities. As many critics have pointed out, this was a luxury version of the mass university, reflecting the image and prestige of Oxford and Cambridge.

www.historyandpolicy.org/policy-papers/papers/university-fees-in-historical-perspective

You can't extrapolate. I didn't extrapolate; I said, "I note that Cambridge doesn't understand why it's broke, it's unclear where its money has gone". I also stated I was looking at this university because I'd previously referred to their published tutorial-teaching costs.

You said that your were "continuing from the suggestion that it's not clear why universities are broke" which does imply that you think because Cambridge doesn't know, nobody else does. The fact is that the funding model for Cambridge is very different to other universities so how things work there and what they do and don't know is irrelevant to other universities.

The problem with using Cambridge as an example is that it is no way representative of the UK higher education system as a whole.

Cambridge is due to record a £53m deficit for the last year, with an internal report claiming that “there is no clear understanding of what has happened” to the University’s finances.

Isn’t it a bit odd that no one knows what’s happened to the finances? I mean surely there are records of investments, and income and outgoings from land and property, plus annual outgoings for the running of the university?

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

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.

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.

@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!

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...

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

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.

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.

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 ...

Noone expects to learn much academically in 1 year masters,

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