The subtext is that the students don't return home, and some of these universities are just a way for people to get a Visa to live in the UK.
International students also get on courses with lower grades than UK students.
International students also get on courses with lower grades than UK students.
There’s a big money in this which cash strapped universities are naturally going to take advantage of.
Employers in India, an example because I know this, don’t care much someone has a degree from UK university even if it’s a prestigious one.
The single biggest factor for an Indian student to go for a graduate degree in developed country is emigration.
It's mostly a money thing: universities are forced to charge below cost (on average) to residents for degrees, so they try to attract international students which they can charge much more for. While some might want to immigrate, plenty more go back home afterwards (The UK has a lot of international prestige for education, so it's extremely common for rich families to send their kids to the UK, including boarding schools below the university level)
The real weakness is lack of recording when you leave the UK. The last time I went abroad there seemed to be no identity check: passports were only checked on entry.
On the other hand it is impossible to get a job or rent decent accommodation without the right visas. It does not matter to illegal immigrants who work illegally for below minimum wage and sleep several to a room rented from a slum landlord, but I cannot see the sort of people who can afford overseas fees doing that.
There are also consequences. I know someone who overstayed by a fairly short time (more due to being disorganised than anything else) who ended up unable to get a visa again for years.
I do know someone who wrote a book (The Professional, by Ashok Ferry) that I think is fairly realistic about the desperate measures people can take to stay in the country, but it was unusual back then for people from affluent backgrounds to do that, and would be even more so now.
https://news.sky.com/story/i-had-no-idea-how-life-would-be-i...
But with very strict legal checks when starting employment and renting property this pushes you outside of reputable employers and landlords... So not so easy if you don't intend to scrape a living by sub-letting an Uber Eats/Deliveroo delivery driver account...
It will be a hard reckoning.
From TFA:
> Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, rejects the suggestion some overseas students are being allowed on courses with poor English language skills as a way of boosting income.
"Students will need to be able to afford the fee to study in the UK, but beyond that it’s a question of taking students who apply, and applying a merit-based criteria," [chief executive] says. "It is absolutely central that this is a system that people trust."
As for the second assertion, that’s just false. I had to apply for a graduate degree as an international student before my citizenship was awarded, the course requirements were explicitly identical, the only different was vastly higher fees and proof of both funding capacity and English language proficiency.
Strangely few of them leave. There is a lot of "grass is greener" in British pessimism about their country.
> neither do most of the international students I’ve met
Most do not, but most never did. Most people prefer to live in their home country (especially if they are the sort that can afford overseas fees). That said they may want a degree that is recognised internationally (e.g. they get a cheaper degree that will be recognised in the US where salaries are much higher).
There are also a significant proportion who do want to stay. As someone with dual nationality the UK is my preferred place to live.
Talk to your average kid stuck in 90% of the one-time industrial towns north of London and the grass isn’t just greener… the fact they’ll never be able to afford to go doesn’t mean they wouldn’t at the drop of a hat if they could.
> Most do not, but most never did
There’s no obviously valid complaint about those who come here, pay international fees, maybe work a few years while paying taxes and NHS premiums, then go elsewhere or home.
Come to think of it there’s very little obvious complaint about those who choose to come here legally, get an education at inflated cost to subsidize lower fees for the locals who tend not to avail themselves of them, then immigrate instead.
Except, that is, from the older folk in those post-industrial towns, who don’t want to go anywhere they might have to speak foreign or eat anything but Sunday roast with proper British potatoes (that they bought from Aldi)… they seem to have a lot of less than obvious complaints.
Where could they go that is better? Lots of nice places abroad if you have money, but lot sof nice places in the UK if you have money.
Have you lived in a former industrial town outside London? I have.
Focusing on people there also breaks the tie to Brexit you mentioned earlier. These are the places where people voted for Brexit. its mostly people in the south who say they want to go abroad because of Brexit, especially affluent people who could if they would.
> Except, that is, from the older folk in those post-industrial towns, who don’t want to go anywhere they might have to speak foreign or eat anything but Sunday roast with proper British potatoes (that they bought from Aldi)
A rather bigoted view of people. I live in (an admittedly fairly prosperous) northern formerly industrial town and its friendly, has a (rather boring) Indian restaurant down the road. "Chinese chippies" are a long standing institution throughout the north west....
"In 2022, almost 73,000 former students were issued a Graduate Visa, which allows them to live and work in the UK for two years after graduation or three years for PhD graduates. Introduced in July 2021, the new route saw high take-up and led to a large increase in the number of students extending their stay in the UK.
The number of students extending their stay in the UK through the Graduate route reached a record level in 2022 and continued to increase in 2023. In the year ending 30 September 2023, around 105,000 Graduate visas were granted to main applicants"
>>I had to apply for a graduate degree
Thanks for your anecdote. The International Students come in via foundation years not available to local students. More money for the uni, and the international students get in with lower grades.
https://www.thetimes.com/uk/article/cash-for-courses-the-for...
And what's wrong with that? These aren't overstays, they're people who've been granted visas in a perfectly above board manner.
73,000 want to, at least for two years.
All of these 'students' are now illegally in these countries, and realistically most will not be caught and deported. Perhaps the worst part is that even at the scale of this fraud, it pales in comparison to the mind-boggling number of students being legally permitted entry to these countries, most of them from India.
The expectations from the Home Office for Level 4 Visas are quite well documented and have very specific conditions that education providers must show to satisfy, e.g. the students who hold these Visas attend all their classes. A provider (University) can have their ability to sponsor Visas removed if their compliance isn't adequate.
Part of the reasons Universities in the UK record attendance at all is because of the compliance regime from the Home Office. The story therefore is that these universities are inadequately complying.