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 ?

Why is it rude quoting Bolton as a less prestigious institution ? My oldest son went there (we’re local, he did an add on year following a HND and got a first). The teaching was abysmal and most of the students were from Pakistan and Nigeria. No problem with the ethnic make up btw, he made some good friends but it questions the economic situation of the uni in question that they are so dependent on international students, very few of whom have found jobs

That’s how they get wealthy. Obviously.

I think any uni regardless of their wealth needs international students. You can't run a business at a loss year after year and keep dipping into ever dwindling savings. It's not sustainable. I'll blame the low uni fees for home students which have not kept pace with rising costs.

Yes, but do you suggest they start selling off so that they can accept more UK students?

They don't unfortunately. The visa changes made by the previous government in a last ditch attempt to reduce immigration numbers at any cost (even though students are 'good' immigrants as they pay huge amounts of money to be here and take nothing off the state) saw an almost immediate and sustained drop in the number of international students applying to UK universites. The current government has intimated they have no plans to change this policy. This is aslo set against a background of already declining numbers in overseas students as universtities in e.g. China and India are getting better and better and retaining more of their own students.

This is a large part of what is driving the financial woes that the majority of universities currently find themselves in. (Alongside ever increasing pay, pension and National Insurance costs, the high rate of inflation, and the freeze on home tuition fees.)

Just wanted to clarify another misconception. Universities are charitable foundations. We have been unprofitable for some time, but in case there are profits, they go back into the pot to improve our service.

It’s rich in assets but it can’t very well sell off its buildings and the upkeep must be in the millions.

Because international student numbers have tanked thanks to covid, cuts of living and unfavourable government policies.
Many universities made financial projections and investments based on the number of international students increasing or at least remaining stable.

But they've tanked....

Plus uk fees don't cover the cost of running a degree programme.

Any evidence for that?

Whole it's true for a small few, working in a university, I can say that a lot of our international students are much better at spag than some home students.

Obviously it's about the money. Home student fees are capped but international students fees are not. International students have been subsidising home students and keeping universities afloat but now they are less inclined to come here, many universities are going to go bankrupt..

Perhaps this depends on the university and the course?

Regardless of the reasons though, international students are a real asset to our higher education community.

A lot of overseas students, I believe, come from outside the EU, so Brexit isn't an issue.

For the record, my niece is looking at her college options in US (their colleges are our uni's effectively) and her fees will be in the region of 30k dollars per year.

@CerealPosterHere whilst the fees are what they are , I'm not sure £300 a week ( which is what it equates too) for many students going in around 8 to 10 hours a week is great value. Obviously for things like medicine and similar it's probably a lot more but in many subjects contact hours are incredibly low - if I was doing an online course and it was £9k a year I would be expecting a lot more than what seems to be on offer at many of our unis- it seems nuts to me that it can be £9k at say Wolverhampton ( as an example- not specifically) and £9k at Oxford

Brexit. We are taking more non-EU students into our unis because they need the money.

International students make up 46% of Oxford's total student body, which is 23% of undergraduates and 65% of graduate students.

Havard has 22.9% of international students in the undergraduate range, so almost identical percentage.

It's not just the UK that attracts international students.

I have to say that during my humanities degree, it was incredibly beneficial to everyone on the course that we had students from different countries, cultures and backgrounds. It opened up our seminars and discussions to a broader range of viewpoints, texts and evidence; off the top of my head I have studied alongside Norwegian, Vietnamese, Chinese, French, Swedish, American, and Canadian students, all of whom had cultural knowledge to offer that I wouldn't have known without their input. I learnt a lot from my international student peers, not only on my course but through several student societies; seeing a society of Japanese students perform a traditional sōran bushi dance during an international student showcase event was one of the highlights of my extracurricular experience.

It goes without saying that I never met a single international student who wasn't fluent in English, too. That's just a ridiculous statement to make; every course has entry requirements that must be met, and in my experience that was reflected clearly by the acumen of the students.

I'm not sure it's anything to do with Brexit because EU students paid the same as UK students.

Yes, as I said earlier, my dad is a professor of Chemistry and deals largely with Chinese PhD students. He regularly complains about the fact that many of them have appalling English which is not sufficient to gain a PhD and staff are told they have to spend many hours helping them with this. He does, of course, have very intelligent students with excellent English too.

It's all about money. It's also a sign the UK really hates itself, any and all investment seems to be overseas which is fine but not at the cost of our own industry and public sectors.

I think you’re right to question it , specifically for Oxford and Cambridge, they have so much land etc etc I’m not sure they really need international students to balance the books, especially as PP said at undergraduate level. which doesn’t really affect the research culture.

Of course many other unis really do need international students to balance the books. And it’s well known that some cheat the language requirements by getting someone else to take the test for them, thst there can be other fraud at the test centres or just an accidental more accessible way of talking by testers who have lived in a particular country for a while even if they are first language English speakers. It’s easier to pass in your home country. Also some unis want a minimum level of English in each of reading, writing, speaking and listening while others/other courses just take the average score for these, so someone could be poor at speaking but better at reading.

Er, money.

This

Post graduate students especially PhDs are often funded from their home country and are not taking places that would otherwise go to domestic students. Others are funded by things like Gates Scholarships (Cambridge) or ERC funded networks where the applicants must be from outside the UK. Cambridge and Oxford are often first choices for the students who are applying for their own funding.

Cambridge at least has quite strict language requirements for admission. We have had students awarded prestigious funding from their home country but were not able to attend due to not meeting the English language requirements.

Undergraduates might be partly/mostly about money but students still have to compete for places.

The fees aren't just for contact hours.

Student support, well being, careers, library, IT systems etc all cost money too.