Funding for academically excellent students from UK to study abroad

[mids2019]

Four out of 10 UK students are being rejected by elite universities mol.im/a/11110105 via dailym.ai/android.

If the above is true in the DM should we consider funding extremely good students squeezed out of Oxbridge to go to US universities?

We have always had a good system where wealth isn't a barrier to university access but increasingly universities are attracting overseas students with their fees but UK students may not have the financial means to reciprocate this arrangement.

She has. But she knows fuck all about it.

And yes of course parliament can alter law. Do you not think there might be one or two unexpected consequences though of the removal of autonomy (granted by Royal Charter hundreds of years ago) to our two most elite institutions?

Trust me it'll never ever happen.

Well done, OP, you’ve fallen for the usual DM blame-it-on-the-foreigners rhetoric.

In reality these international students are what are keeping our courses and institutions running because it sure as hell isn’t government funding that’s doing that. Some universities are a couple of years’ inflation away from going bust.

Having 3A grades is not, in any case, a guarantee that a student will benefit from an Oxbridge education. They need to be able to deal with the very specific kind of (tutorial) teaching that is provided there. I had outstanding A level grades (and obviously achieved before 45% of grades were A and A) and did not get into Oxford. In hindsight, I absolutely think that was the right decision and I was able to benefit far more from a course at an institution with different teaching formats.

Sorry about the bolding, MN cannot cope with two instance of the A* grade in a paragraph!

@GCAcademic

I wasn't intending the post to be be xenophobic at all and I am aware the DM has an angle in things

The point was more if fairness in that if we view all academia as a global enterprise should we admit that ability to pay does effect a students ultimate destination?

I don’t understand your suggestion. Anyone can go study in the US if they want? Why should the tax payer fund it, they don’t fund home students?

International students studying the U.K. pay much higher fees than home students. And they pay privately.

@GCAcademic

I get your point but it therefore stands that Oxbridge are international universities attracting students with the ability to cope with their means of teaching

How therefore so you draw the line for the proportion of international students entering universities.

I guess you could have an internationally level playing field but does this leave universities as multi national institutions autonomous of UK education strategy from a political sense?

(No probs with the typos)

UK universities don't have to charge such high fees for international students. That would ensure a more level playing field.

Well no, they could all go bust I suppose that is option. 🤷‍♀️

So why don't all Unis in many European countries with free Uni education go bust?

If the rest of the world viewed higher education as a global enterprise there'd be no need for your plan of the UK tax payer funding the bright but poor kid to go to the US because their unis would only charge a pittance in fees.

So why don't all Unis in many European countries with free Uni education go bust?

Because their governments actually recognise the importance of HE and fund it properly.

We used to actually. Many many years ago.

How about we leave it up to Oxford and Cambridge to sort out the balance of home and international students. You know they are kind of the experts.

So why don't all Unis in many European countries with free Uni education go bust?

They are better funded by government.

In general they also offer rather less in terms of teaching, support, student facilities, etc. When we have students come to my department on Erasmus (as was) they are amazed that we know their names and that they get small group teaching which they can participate in (rather than anonymous presence in a lecture hall with 300 students; this is on a humanities course).

And if Liz Truss thinks she can mandate Ox and Cam to interview all kids with top grades she'll have to completely amend the Higher Education and Research Act to remove the autonomy of those two universities.

At which point those two universities will choose to become private institutions, stop accepting Student Loans Company-funded UK students and set up their own bank/loans company to fund students who they select on their own criteria.

They have already said publicly that they would consider closing all their undergraduate courses if Truss goes ahead with the plan she recently made up.

@titchy

cherwell.org/2022/08/07/liz-truss-promises-oxbridge-admissions-shake-up/

So how do you stop Oxbridge becoming a political football? I take your point that universities should act autonomously but in that case what is the point if having a universities minister and what should their role be?

Have they publicly said that? Good for them. I wondered whether they'd just rolled their eyes at the ludicrousness of the proposal. (Private institutions can still get SFE funding btw - it's just capped at the regulated rate.)

@NoNotHimTheOtherOne

Wow Liz has struck a nerve....

I don't think that people fully understand how those overseas fees are vital to funding courses and resources for UK students. Our local university spends quite a lot of money on overseas recruitment and it would cause a massive problem not to have them.

If you reduced international numbers at elite affluent universities won't that make room for the excellent but poor UK students that just missed out?

No. International students' tuition fees subsidise home students on expensive courses, including all laboratory science and engineering courses. If the universities can't (a) recruit lots of students to cheap courses (humanities and social sciences), which is increasingly difficult, and (b) recruit international students, those expensive courses will close.

HE is highly highly (so highly) regulated. That's the point of the minister - to do the will of the Gov. If Gov policy is that science is good and creative arts bad, then the minister recommends removing funding from creative arts and allocating some of it to science.

If you knew anything about this you would realise what an absolutely appalling thing it would be. It would be catastrophic for the whole sector.

@titchy

Do you think our possible new prime minister may be wrong 😦

Obviously

Let me guess, OP. Your kid missed out on an offer from Cambridge. Now the way in which universities fund themselves has to be changed and the foreign students have to go home.

You do know politicians say stuff they don't mean right? Surely you're not naive enough to believe everything they say. Hell they don't even do what's in their manifestos.

Wow Liz has struck a nerve....

You say that like it's a good thing. "Liz" (friend of yours, is she?) has made up a plan that she thinks will attract Party members' votes without talking to ministers or officials about whether there is the slightest possibility of delivering it. She doesn't know anything about how universities work or how they are funded. I'm not saying that either universities or student funding are currently anywhere near ideal, but changing them for the better won't be achieved by dashing off unconsidered and uncosted headline-grabbing schemes.