| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences 09:01 - Feb 4 with 2904 views | DJR |
https://www.theguardian.com/en
"If I think about what this means, I want to cry’: what happens when a city loses its university?
When Essex University’s Southend campus opened, it was a message of hope for a ‘left behind’ UK seaside town. Its closure will be felt far beyond its 800 students, some of whom will not get their degrees"
Something like this has already happened in Hastings, when Brighton University closed its campus there.
[Post edited 4 Feb 9:05]
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| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 19:39 - Feb 4 with 437 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 18:10 - Feb 4 by ZapatasMoustache |
Not my experience - Chinese numbers are as high as ever. It's EU students at masters level where we have seen a catastrophic drop, and that's down to a combination of Brexit and the slightly softer version of the 'hostile environment' that has been applied to students (shorter visas etc). |
I bet it varies. We lost Chinese students early 2020s after Covid restrictions, replaced with west African and South Asian and now they’ve gone after the tightening of the visa rules. Masters have taken the biggest hit though. The compounding problem for non-Russell group unis is the lifting of the subject numbers cap; now the better unis are sucking up students they would have rejected in the past leaving middle universities with fewer home students as well. So even though home student numbers are creeping up, the better unis seem to be mopping them up and middle ground unis are seeing falling numbers.
It’s incredibly annoying because all the challenges are a result of political decisions. Apart from the last demographic dip we had, but that’s gone and the number of total 18 year olds is rising again. But, there’s another demographic dip coming in 2030 that will see numbers of 18 year olds fall year on year until at least 2035. There needs to be significant sector-wide changes to the funding model before then! |  |
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| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 20:00 - Feb 4 with 410 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 11:25 - Feb 4 by lowhouseblue |
higher education policy is a mess. the blair target of 50% going to university was progressive and advanced opportunity, but only made sense if there were real graduate level jobs for people to go into. it also led to decline in apprenticeships and vocational training. and similarly the tory / lib dem funding model made sense for universities producing graduates going into top paying sectors, but makes no sense when a high proportion of grads are going into jobs they could have done with out the degree. it's produced a generation of heavily indebted graduates on average wages who find it even harder to buy houses etc. all of this caused the sector to expand hugely with mixed effects in terms of quality. when funding ran short universities were encouraged to adopt a financial model reliant on attracting overseas students as cash cows. and we then had the farce of the graduate visa, largely as a device to enable skint universities to recruit abroad - effectively selling a visa which allowed people to stay on after their degree all in the hope of eventually getting pltr. it was a tory wheeze to avert a funding crisis in HE and was a significant part of the boris wave, which has been hugely divisive. bliar's 50% was incredibly well intentioned but it has led on to an absolute mess and a sector which has grown too far and is financially unsustainable. at least now with the rise in interest rates USS isn't about to go bust, even if marginal institutions do fail. |
"bliar....."
Welcome to the light Lowers. |  |
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| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 20:08 - Feb 4 with 397 views | BanksterDebtSlave |
| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 11:48 - Feb 4 by darkhorse28 |
You think our universities should exist to educate the world?
Maybe. Not sure it works when it excludes indigenous people - if they didn’t self loath so much I’m sure the guardian could muster an ‘indigenous population priced out of education headline’ skin colour and religion dependent of course.
In Scotland I’ve rented a property to international students on and off for many years. They pay a fortune to be here …, university places are ‘free’ but capped, and so universities flood their places with those that pay the most, international students.
The consequence. Attainment for children from poor backgrounds is the worst in the UK …, in the only place.., where there is free access.., let that sink in.
And that’s 100% a product of international students paying more, and universities being run as businesses.
It’s weird.
It’s like the guardian just hate themselves, in any other country, the story would be how local people, especially in poverty, are denied access to education, because they have less money…, my Chinese students can afford Edinburgh rents, local students really can’t.
Really weird.
We shouldn’t run universities as businesses to expand and educate the world, especially when that resource leaves the UK and doesn’t add value and denies local people that opportunity.
I guess it starts by charging the same fees, and stopping the incentive to prioritise foreign students above others. And capping places not for local student but for foreign students. The number I’ve met that really can’t speak English very well at all, but can afford the fees, it’s not very kind is it, to take their money, and not educate. At the expense of local students, craving opportunity.
We have given priority to those that pay the most, and the guardian thinking that’s a good thing, shows their ignorance, and hypocrisy.
I’m sure they sat down with an agenda around xenophobia and worked backwards, but they’ve got this very wrong, we’ve prioritised international students for a very long time, to make as much money as we could and expand those universities.
Where I live in Edinburgh there now thousands of homes for students.., and no campus within miles. It’s a huge (business) success.., one of the cities biggest industry.
The cost. It’s all international. And Scottish children in poverty .., thy stopped going to university, even if they get a capped free place, the rents are only affordable to wealthy students.., they have to go and work instead.
Not the most ‘guardian’ ethos when you break it down is it .., it is like their agenda dwarfed the facts and evidence - worst attainment in the UK .., and they want MORE foreign students.
Wow - I think they’d ideally like indigenous children sweeping chimneys!! .., that’s some expression of metropolitan privilege right there.
International students are great. But when you milk them like a cash cow, at the expense of educating people who are more likely to add value economically, long term, and to do so as a priority, it fails everyone.
It’s not xenophobic to want your best resources, to go to those people, most in need, who will stay and add most value to your economy.
I’m an Erasmus student. Foreign exchange is amazing, we should always have lots of international students, but the balance changed when it became about money alone. And we do have balance wrong, and we are suffering for that, especially children in poverty.
Shocking to deny a generation education, because stopping people with no basic language skills, who won’t get any benefit, but have deep pockets, might be considered xenophobic.
We really need to get over the virtue signalling, social status craving hysteria and develop policies that get outcomes.
The self loathing really doesn’t help.
Nobody at the Guardian will struggle to pay for places - it’s always children in poverty, from the UK, they’re happy to throw under the bus. Strange that. |
Shouldn't you be charging less rent? | |
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| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 20:27 - Feb 4 with 382 views | BornDeleuze |
| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 11:18 - Feb 4 by Samuelowen88 |
Universities are not in a good way. As others have said the lack of overseas students (mainly from China) has created a massive shortfall and they are doing everything they can to save money.
The government is also reducing it's research funding in some sectors, which is another big pay day for universities, and another think that the UK can claim to be world leading at.
Quite why the Gov aren't funding research like they used to, who knows, but there are very sizable project that have either had their funding scrapped entirely or thinned down to an extent that makes them unfeasible.
In general, the outlook is pretty bleak. |
The main issue, added to east you describe, is that the student fees no longer cover the actual costs of teaching them. The fees were recently raised but, at the same time, so were NI contributions so that wiped out the rise. For years many Unis subsidised the home student shortfall with international students. This has dropped off and so now the red bricks are lowering tariffs and hoovering up all the students they wouldn’t normally accept and would keep the ex-Polys going. The new unis are now exploring apprenticeships and opening campuses overseas, which means courses are closing here in order to finance overseas education. How’s that for a national education strategy? |  | | |
| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 21:52 - Feb 4 with 339 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 20:27 - Feb 4 by BornDeleuze |
The main issue, added to east you describe, is that the student fees no longer cover the actual costs of teaching them. The fees were recently raised but, at the same time, so were NI contributions so that wiped out the rise. For years many Unis subsidised the home student shortfall with international students. This has dropped off and so now the red bricks are lowering tariffs and hoovering up all the students they wouldn’t normally accept and would keep the ex-Polys going. The new unis are now exploring apprenticeships and opening campuses overseas, which means courses are closing here in order to finance overseas education. How’s that for a national education strategy? |
Inflationary erosion in the value of the fee has been the real kicker, but yes the NI rise meant the latest fee uplift was largely wiped out too. Yeah, not much of a strategy is it?
Here's the change in the real term value of the home student fees for anyone else who isn't aware of what's going on. Student fee are the vast majority of income for unis. (for England; Wales unis were getting even less until the 25/26 uplift):
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/art
A very common picture under austerity for many areas of course.
It's not just the ex-polys either. Long-standing 'real' universities are getting hit hard and shedding jobs and cutting spending: Lancaster, Nottingham, Leicester, Swansea, amongst others. Even the red brick Russell Group unis are getting hit now: Edinburgh and Cardiff have both recently had huge job loss 'restructuring' programmes. And there are certainly more affected, I'm not actively looking it's just what I hear from former colleagues and friends in these places. It would be easier to list those not shedding jobs.
Cumulatively, it's something like 15,000-20,000 jobs gone in the last year according to Times Higher Education reporting of research published last autumn (paywalled). Another c. 30,000 went in the previous two years. Up to 50,000 jobs gone in 3 years and there's barely a whimper in the press or from politicians! It's only in the news now because of the changes to student loans. If this was in the automotive or steel industry it would be dominating the papers and politicians would be jumping through hoops to try and do deals (e.g. for comparison, Port Talbot steel plant closure was 2,500 job losses, Rotherham and Sheffield plant about 1,900 - horrendous, but a tiny fraction of HE sector losses). [Post edited 4 Feb 22:00]
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| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 13:54 - Feb 9 with 196 views | ZapatasMoustache |
| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 19:39 - Feb 4 by Swansea_Blue |
I bet it varies. We lost Chinese students early 2020s after Covid restrictions, replaced with west African and South Asian and now they’ve gone after the tightening of the visa rules. Masters have taken the biggest hit though. The compounding problem for non-Russell group unis is the lifting of the subject numbers cap; now the better unis are sucking up students they would have rejected in the past leaving middle universities with fewer home students as well. So even though home student numbers are creeping up, the better unis seem to be mopping them up and middle ground unis are seeing falling numbers.
It’s incredibly annoying because all the challenges are a result of political decisions. Apart from the last demographic dip we had, but that’s gone and the number of total 18 year olds is rising again. But, there’s another demographic dip coming in 2030 that will see numbers of 18 year olds fall year on year until at least 2035. There needs to be significant sector-wide changes to the funding model before then! |
Yep, absolutely. Russell Group unis are responsible for closing down entire depts at other unis by pinching their students, it's horrendous. I'm strongly in favour of both bringing back central management/capping of student numbers, but I think that will only work in conjunction with a decommercialised funding system (which I think now is pretty clearly necessary too). |  | | |
| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 18:27 - Feb 9 with 148 views | jontysnut |
| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 11:18 - Feb 4 by Samuelowen88 |
Universities are not in a good way. As others have said the lack of overseas students (mainly from China) has created a massive shortfall and they are doing everything they can to save money.
The government is also reducing it's research funding in some sectors, which is another big pay day for universities, and another think that the UK can claim to be world leading at.
Quite why the Gov aren't funding research like they used to, who knows, but there are very sizable project that have either had their funding scrapped entirely or thinned down to an extent that makes them unfeasible.
In general, the outlook is pretty bleak. |
I did some work with a university vice chancellor who was on £500,000 a year. |  | | |
| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 18:43 - Feb 9 with 133 views | Swansea_Blue |
| Making the UK less attractive to international students has consequences on 18:27 - Feb 9 by jontysnut |
I did some work with a university vice chancellor who was on £500,000 a year. |
That’s a lot of course. I’m not defending it and think a smaller gap between VC’s salaries and their other employees would be more moral. On the other hand, it’s not much relative to other industries. I’ve just looked at Bristol Uni as it was the first to come into my head. Turnover of £1.2BN, VC reportedly earns £315k (obviously more with pension benefits). Man U has a turn over half the size and pays their Chief Exec £4M. Chief Execs at Water Cos, £1-1.5M, etc.
I suppose the correct answer is that top salaries well out of synch with their employees salaries are obscene across the board. University’s are at the less obscene end of the scale given the size of business and value they add to their local areas. [Post edited 9 Feb 19:39]
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