For years now, our government and a large vocal chunk of our population are doing their best to keep foreigners out, cut ties outside of the country, and make it very clear that if you’re not British you’re not welcome here.
Why would universities be surprised by this turn of events? They’ve seen it happening for years now.
Furthermore, even young people from the UK are reconsidering university too, partly because we were all deeply lied to about how useful a degree would be in getting a job,
and partly because thanks to huge changes over the past 15 years in the costs of university and costs of living, it’s become impossible for many young people to attend university even if they wanted to.
Some groups in the UK are working hard to both restrict access to education for our own people, whilst also working hard to keep foreign people out of the country.
Think about that for a moment, and you may be as worried as I am.
Education, along with the mixing of cultures and peoples is important for the health of any free, prosperous nation. But these things are the enemy of authoritarians, fascists…
I work for a university and there is no surprise. This has been building for a while.
The issue, not just for universities but the UK as a whole, is that foreign students subsidise UK research. When the government funds research projects it only funds 80% of the cost of the project (Look at UKRI funding terms). Higher foreign student fees are 3-4x UK nationals fees.
From another perspective we’re essentially selling off our intellectual property to non-nationals which really puts a dampener on our future competitiveness.
If the government is unwilling to pony up the cash to cover research, whilst actively discourage foreign students, then the quality and quantity of research is going to fall off a cliff.
The root of the problem is treating universities as a business. Education should be free. I find this sentence particularly disgusting
Mark Corver, the chief executive of DataHE, a higher education consultancy, said the reliance on international student fees was a symptom of the previous government’s failure to increase domestic tuition fees from £9,250 for nearly eight years
It’s a failure to increase tuition??? What the goddamn fuck is wrong with you people? Are you trying to become the USA?
The UK is so fucked…
I first went to university when it was just over £3k in fees. When I returned to university, it was over £9k.
Honestly, and this may just be my experience, though everything seemed better in the before days when the fees were much less. I’m not sure what universities are doing with the 3x increase but it seems like feck all.
I agree with you. Education should indeed be free, and the costs are just there to try and gatekeep learning of all things.Central funding for further education has been cut massively since tuition fees were increased, so they have had an overall reduction in income from teaching
That is so sad yet it does line up with my experiences. Thank you for the info.
Curious to compare that to the US. What years were those?
2009 was the year of my first enrollment, and I returned in 2016.
Hope this helps! I found the experiences wildly different.
In the US, for public universities, that went from about $12K to $16K. I ask because when I was in university back in the early 2000s it was only about $6K…. Oh, and those costs are per year, not total.
UK universities are fucked. Government made it about how much tuition fees they could earn, and they could earn way more from overseas students than from actually skilling up the populace. Now the Chinese are reaching a tipping point where they don’t need to go overseas for education anymore, and the entire UK system will collapse without that money.
I think they are doomed. Visa rules for foreign students, who pay a lot more than British ones, make it less attractive than it used to be. And in general, the benefits of having a degree don’t make up for the ever increasing cost of that degree. My local Uni is shutting down many courses and getting rid of a lot of staff. Not just courses that some would label pointless either, it includes nursing for example.
Brexshit anyone?
This is the best summary I could come up with:
UK universities face financial turmoil as figures from the Home Office show plunging numbers of international students applying for courses starting in the next academic year.
Most student visa applications are received over the summer, leaving many universities hoping that things will improve by September.
Jeff Williams, Enroly’s chief executive, said the latest data showed that international student recruitment for September had been on a downward trend since the start of the year.
“Our UK university colleagues are working tirelessly to continue to attract international students to their programmes.
If Enroly’s figures are representative of the sector, about 150,000 fewer international students would arrive on UK campuses this autumn.
If better exam grades encourage more school leavers to go to university, that would offset the expected losses from international students.
The original article contains 415 words, the summary contains 130 words. Saved 69%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!
