As the FT has reported this morning:
The number of international students paying deposits to study at UK universities has “plummeted” after Rishi Sunak put restrictions on education visas, according to industry data given to the government's independent adviser on migration.
Enroly, a web platform used by one in three international students for managing university enrolment, said deposits to a representative sample of 24 British universities had declined 57 per cent year-on-year as of May.
From my experience, I can confirm that this phenomena is happening.
And, whilst I avoid all issues to do with university admin if I can, rumours reach me from many of the universities where I am now working with people that the reaction to this situation is going to be severe.
The supply of education to foreign students studying in the UK has been a major export trade for this country. It has been a massive earner. As a result many universities have come to rely on the courses that attract foreign students as a major source of funding, and of cross subsidisation to less popular courses that they still think it essential that they supply. For the record, accounting and finance courses have been high on the list of those courses that have played this role as major income generators that then cross subsidise other activities.
Now those courses are suddenly attracting far fewer students. Not only does this imply that there will be a significant drop in UK invisible earnings from the effective export of these services, but that there will be very rapid knock on effects in the universities themselves.
First, there will be rounds or redundancies as the need for teaching staff declines in some areas, almost overnight.
Then there will be the end of the cross subsidies. As an result, expect many universities to stop offering degree courses in many arts subjects, in particular. Some of these are already expensive to deliver and those that are already declining in popularity, like some language courses, are likely to be subject to review very soon if this income stream is not available.
The net result of this absurd and racist policy is going to be very obvious, very soon. We are not only going to be a poorer country, but we will be one whose soft power in the world will be greatly reduced, whilst our cultural life will be severely diminished. And all because the Tories are playing to far-right racists. That really does disgust me.
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Some numbers. Education is a £30 billion export business. More than 75% of that is higher education.
https://explore-education-statistics.service.gov.uk/find-statistics/uk-revenue-from-education-related-exports-and-transnational-education-activity
I understand the University of Manchester alone has income of over £1 billion. Half of that is tuition fees, and the 10,000 overseas students (about a quarter by number) provide about 60% of that. If that contribution is cut by half then about 15% of the overall income will be gone in one year. There are not many ways to quickly cut expenses by a similar amount.
Correct
A previous FT report showed how deep cuts in public funding and the loss of EU money since Brexit have devastated the financial position of universities. We spend less than half Germany does per FTE student.
https://www.ft.com/content/0aca64a4-5ddc-43f8-9bba-fc5d5aa9311d
I don’t disagree with the points made.
However, what is missing is the underlying rationale (putting to one side that many tories are racists). The aim is to cause some unis to go out of business or in the case of others reduce courses. Oxbridge/Russel mob won’t be affected, but most Uk serfs that go through a uni education never get there. The tories don’t want UK serfs educated – much beyond basic literacy and numeracy.
Couple this to a total failure to run craft courses @ whatever passes for tech colleges (remind me how easy it is to find a plumber or spark these days?) and we have another step down the road to the UK reduced to .. rubble?
USA will likely benefit, perhaps some Unis in Europe that run courses in English (Dutch are good at that & have very fine tech unis). Every day, in every way, the tories and LINO (standing on the sidelines hand wringing – with zero policies) grinding the UK down, bit by bit.
Following up on the speculation – tories want to reduce the number of universities, here is a recent May 2023 speech by a Tory MP Cates
https://www.miriamcates.org.uk/news/our-declining-birth-rate
Kicks off with Uk & declining birth rates (Tories finally twigged there is a problem – Cates comes out with assorted half-arsed reasons). Then the perspective on unis rolls into view:
Extract:
“……………..for many young men, going to University can result in lower earnings than alternative pathways. Unusually, in Britain, Higher Education is almost always residential, …..and often results in young people moving away from home permanently. This breaks up the network of extended family that can offer so much support to young couples with children. Hardly surprising, then, that some estimates suggest graduates are 50% more likely to remain childless. ……………when the UK taxpayer spends £14 billion pounds a year on universities, when our culture says that university is the passport to respectability, and tells young people that fulfilment is only to be found in education and career, then our bloated higher education system has become a hindrance and not a help to family formation.”
Ends.
I hope you are listening UK serfs. The Tories & their alter-ego LINO want you lot to start breeding. 1st step will be a vast reduction in the “bloated higher eduction system” – what it is replaced with is anybody’s guess. Tory-Cates witters on about her own constituency & how all those well-paid steel jobs dissapeared ………of course she skated over the reality – they went because of Tory/Tory-lite actions or lack thereof. She is pathetic.
The University system really isn’t fit for purpose. How many International Relations or Politics graduates does the Economy need?
Have you noticed the stresses in the world? Quite a lot I would say.
I should add, I know you are trolling.
Thank you and well said, Richard.
For Gary (and others): https://www.hepi.ac.uk/2015/10/01/now-thats-call-soft-power-55-world-leaders-educated-uk/.
My father came here to study medicine in the mid 1960s and then joined the RAF, like his father and uncle and their cousins in WW2, serving God, Queen and country for the next quarter of the century. He remembers his tutors talking about the soft power of UK education then.
I think that trolling using the name of Gary Speed is especially disgusting.
The price of everything and the value of nothing.
Things like Universities and The World Service make friends and influence people.
So lets cut them………..
It appears to be an endemic feature of the Tory mind that driven by greed they are completely incapable of understanding the concept of a fair and mutually productive relationship.
They spent the first half of their 14 years of government grovelling to China and the second half with China as their number one hate.
Now fourteen years after pushing universities into becoming financially dependent on foreign students it is yet another crashing hand-brake reversal.
They will only pay any attention if Oxford starts to squeal.
As for the worst prime ministers ever (certainly for the last 150 years) it is undeniable that all of the very worst have been since 2010. There are good claims for either Cameron, May, Johnson, Truss or Sunak to be called the “worst PM ever”, but I am beginning to come to the conclusion that Sunak could be the worst, as he is so utterly inept.
The others (excepting Truss who had some sort of guiding vision – ‘rip it all up’) had some ‘prime ministerial gravitas’ – for what it’s worth – (however less so for Johnson, but everyone knew how desperate he was to be PM – plus it suited Johnson character when we had a similar leader across the Atlantic with Trump).
Sunak is there for ‘PM’ on his CV, and that is very bad for the country.
Thank you, Duncan.
I have friends from the same community as Sunak. They explain that there’s still pressure from parents and in laws for this status symbol, although decreasing for those born and raised here and living away from communal concentrations. Sunak was included on the Tory “A list” not long after his father in law met Cameron.
A local candidate was favoured by the local Tory members, but Tory HQ and a local landowner married to Rees-Mogg, who has business interests in common with Sunak, got involved and the rest is history.
How can this be compatible with rejoining the Horizons EU program and even Erasmus for undergrads? Those are open, i.e. not unilateral exchange programs for international exchange.
If Ritchie does not like students from Asian countries, other than his own India, study engineering and IT in the UK, then exclude them only.
Thank you and well said, Richard.
Un peu d’histoire…
Soon after the coalition was formed, I became part of three initiatives tasked with making suggestions to boost growth, skills, productivity, funding and even overseas aid as austerity was implemented. Banks had an ulterior motive. Participation was designed to head off restrictions on pay and structural reform.
One session focused on making it easier for secondments, tourists, students etc. Universities, university towns, resorts, sectors reliant on cross border cooperation, multinationals etc. were represented. There was no Home Office representation. Civil servants from other departments did their best to cover for the Home Office. One City representative called out the intransigence of Theresa May.
It seems that May is obsessed with foreigners and considers students and tourists the same as other migrants. Explaining to her what Richard has written is like talking to a wall.
Upon my return to the office, I briefed my manager, a former Treasury junior minister and near neighbour of May in Berkshire. May is not clubbable. I have heard from former colleagues of hers before she went into politics. No one can work out why. Her professional career says a lot. No one was surprised by how Brexit evolved on her watch, including the Lancaster House speech that was not bounced past Philip Hammond and set the UK on the path to a hard Brexit. The wonder is how Tory HQ could not filter her out.
I hadn’t realised she had been a banker.
You gotta watch them lot.
Thank you, Ian. You’re not wrong.
Yes. After the Bank of England, May worked for what became my employer. Oddly enough, her former colleagues who told me about her, other than my boss, are in sympathy with Richard’s blog.
May’s husband works with a friend of mine. The City’s a parish.
The Mays were introduced at an Oxford university Tory party disco by Benazir Bhutto. Bhutto and Philip May had just ended their relationship amicably, so she introduced him to her friend.
Good lord! The things you can learn from a ‘colonel’ 🙂
Time and again, I find myself asking whether politicians are deliberately trying to destroy everything that used to make me proud to be British, or whether they are just too dumb to see what they are doing. Or more interestingly to explore, perhaps our political system is so desperately in need of reform that it is impossible to do the right thing, even if MPs want to?
Bang on, as usual. And the impact (or coming impact) is already being felt, I can assure you. For example, my wife came home on Friday with news that her university had just announced a ‘managed agreed retirement scheme’ that all staff can apply to. It’s basically voluntary redundancy as far as I can see, but avoiding using that term, presumably to try to guard against getting mentioned in the ‘Educashun’ (sic) section of Private Eye and other publications.
As you (and other commentors) note, the consequences of this are going to be drastic and wide ranging. One such you didn’t mention, but I’d like to flag, is whatever happens to the thousands of rooms of student accommodation. For example, over the past few years the city in which I live has seen a phenomenal increase in new-build blocks of student accommodation, alongside the similar conversion of almost any type of empty building into the same. It appears that the city council are unable to do anything about this despite it regularly being raised as an issue of concern by local people. As overseas students are major users of this type of accommodation (for obvious reasons) I envisage much of this lying vacant (or is this part of a secret plan to create living space for the homeless).
Finally, your point on soft power cannot be overstated. Indeed, back in the late 1990’s I worked at a university that worked hard at recruiting overseas postgraduate students and I made several trips to Hong Kong, Singapore and elsewhere to assist in this process. At the time the university worked in partnership with the British Council (BC) who were instrumental at promoting UK higher education abroad. The BC staff I met worked hard at arranging and promoting meetings and seminars in their locale whenever staff from a UK university were visiting and I can tell you for a fact as it was openly discussed between me and my colleagues and BC staff that this was all about projecting a positive image of the UK and ‘winning friends and influencing people’ – i.e. soft power. But there’s not much point in promoting soft power overseas if you’re doing all you can back in the UK to undermine it.
All resonate with me, Ivan