Albert Cardona

"In the UK, a quarter of total university income is generated by international students, who pay much higher fees than home students. To attract them, British universities rely on vast, largely unregulated networks of agents operating primarily in Asia and Africa."

"The reason British universities spend so much to attract international students is simple: if they were to rely solely on home students, they would go bust."

What could possibly go wrong ... with university finances. This system is not well-grounded, not reliable or stable in any way or form.

https://www.theguardian.com/education/ng-interactive/2026/apr/07/brutal-reality-of-life-as-a-foreign-student-in-the-uk

#UK #academia

‘I see it as trafficking’: the brutal reality of life as a foreign student in the UK

The long read: Universities in Britain rely on overseas applicants paying full fees, which has given rise to some unscrupulous recruiters and left many hopefuls and their families deep in debt

The Guardian
Apr 7 at 9:28pmWeb
Show threadMr. ZER02d ago
@albertcardona Interesting, I would've assumed an institution that's dedicated to "intellectual" endeavors would be able to come up with a sustainable(and hopefully "ethical"/"moral") solution regarding its finances instead of blowing £500m a year on unregulated middlemen to basically scam/exploit international students into massive debt traps just to keep the lights on.
Show threadCharles ☭  is a Green15h ago

@Mr0 @albertcardona

They would close.

There are some options like going into partnership with industry, which is happening, but that can also be ethically dodgy. But no industry wants to partner with a poetry department, so humanities and arts departments are shutting left and right.

And universities actually are shutting. They're merging with other (relatively) nearby universities, but they won't be running two philosophy programmes, so this is effectively a shutdown that (temporarily) preserves one of every department present at either uni.

Alas, the ability to write a very detailed and much beloved book on 15th century chansons doesn't tend to overlap with the ability to conjure large sums of money.

Universities are expensive to run and successive governments have deprived them of all funding sources. A very small number have endowments, but most don't.

It wasn't very long ago that the UK had the lowest rates of university education in Europe by a wide margin. One of the policies of the Blair era was to instead have the highest percentage. However, the coalition and Tory governments were broadly anti-education and wanted to shut many universities but this was wildly unpopular, so they decided to create conditions for universities to fail. Labour has stuck with these policies because of course they have. Universities are failing. Communities are losing their major economic drivers and the home of much of their cultural life. The policy is a success.

Show threadGraham Dunning14h ago
@celesteh @Mr0 @albertcardona very well explained.
Show threadThree plus or minus five8h ago

@celesteh @Mr0 @albertcardona
Just to add: US universities are right now suffering from the lack of foreign students, and it's going to absolutely cripple this country in ways few can forsee. Besides devastating science other academic work, it's linked to many fewer skilled people immigrating. This was an easy way for the rabid right to mean we are going to soon no longer be science and technology leaders.

They really believe prosperity is a divine gift.

Show threadDan Goodman1d ago
@albertcardona oof that makes for grim reading.
Show threadAlbert Cardona1d ago

@neuralreckoning

Says out loud a reality that's all to convenient to ignore. Puts in perspective all the intern students desperate for funding and yet all too willing to go ahead without it.

Show threadSören1d ago
@albertcardona They should make a study about it.
Show threadMegan Lynch (she/her)15h ago
@albertcardona Sounds very much like what happened after conservatives in the US slashed public education funding. It incentivized universities to go after students who would have to pay higher tuition fees than in-state students.
Show threadAlbert Cardona15h ago

@ml

And despite seeing that disaster unfold the UK went ahead with it. Perhaps because for the rich – banks, lenders – there was a windfall instead.

Show threadMegan Lynch (she/her)12h ago
@albertcardona The rich know no nation so they have the same goals everywhere. More wealth and status and privilege for them, taken from everyone else.
Show threadj_bertolotti12h ago

@albertcardona An extra ingredient that needs to be added to the story is that the system to apply and be accepted by a Uni in the UK is so extremely convoluted and baroque that it is unlikely you will be able to navigate it from outside the country without the help of someone.

(Also, plenty of countries in Europe where Uni is cheap. Not sure why all those students aim to the UK.)

Show threadKo-Fan Chen 陳克帆9h ago
@j_bertolotti @albertcardona it's the language and the interconnected network one imagined for the Anglosphere. I was a subscriber for it myself as an international student, plus the UK was among the few countries that had shorter years to complete Master(1yr) and Bachelor degrees (3yr), although this list is now expanded.
Show threadAlbert Cardona3h ago

@kofanchen @j_bertolotti

And yet most graduate programs in Europe run in English, at least in Germany, Switzerland, Austria, and in my home country, Catalonia. At least that’s what I’ve seen from direct experience.

Show threadKo-Fan Chen 陳克帆1h ago
@albertcardona I completely agree, hence the draw to the UK was an image that was sold to and re-enforced ourselves but after some careful examination, it is a lot of wishful thinking and not entirely true. However I am not sure how much everyday life I can operate well in a country that I don't speak the language @j_bertolotti
Show threadAngus Marshall  12h ago
@albertcardona and now, British universities are building overseas campuses so students don't have to come to the UK. Geniuses in management!
Show threadAkshay12h ago

@albertcardona

Similar stuff in the Netherlands, though I don’t know if it’s this bad.

But politicians encouraged recruiting international students for financial and strategic reasons, before a sudden and recent xenophobia-driven rugpull.

Show threadLesley Lai10h ago

@albertcardona I think in my university (in Australia), it's around 90%.

It's ridiculous that with 10x more income, they are doing rounds of budget cuts on faculties and stuffs (with absurd results such as not allowing TAs to answer questions on Edstem (online Q&A forums)).

Show threadKo-Fan Chen 陳克帆10h ago
@albertcardona
Almost all my international MSc students worked and it is so hard for them. At the same time I think the PhD graduate job market is just as tough too. The amount of effort and the length of time they need to find a job that fulfill their dream and survive is unbelievable. Not so sure the old wisdom of my student times applies anymore.
Show threadLuke7h ago

@albertcardona And it’s especially unsustainable in the case of postgraduate research, where cost recoveries hover around 50%(?!) despite high international fees and a staggeringly high proportion of international recruits.

Lots of reasons for this, but the UK has one of the lowest levels of public investment in higher education in the world and very high levels of reliance on student fee income (Source: OECD).

In the case of postgraduate research part of the problem is that UKRI will only pay a home fee for PGRs on government studentships (despite insisting we also recruit internationally) and the level they will pay institutions is much lower than even a taught home postgraduate fee (and is a de facto cap on home PGR fees). Not exactly a recipe for funding future talent. Recoveries even for UKRI-funded PGRs don’t each 80%…

Universities therefore treat PGR as an essential investment, but one which is in effect cross-subsidised by international taught postgraduate recruitment.

I am relieved to say that despite all this most of our PGRs seem relatively content with many aspects of their time with us (according to both the PRES and International Student Barometer). A lot of effort goes into that. And we don’t tend to use agents for PGR recruitment.

Show threadAlbert Cardona3h ago

@wlukewindsor

Thanks for this. For clarity, what are a PGR and a PRES?

(I’ve been here in the UK for over 6 years and still don’t know the acronyms; so many.)

Show threadLuke3h ago

@albertcardona Postgraduate Researcher (i.e., doctoral candidate, PhD student)

Postgraduate Research Experience Survey

Show threadYza6h ago
@albertcardona so like the uk to be so dependant of foreign workers, students, etc, while also actively trying to keep them out and punish them for even coming here at all
Show threadSteve Lindsay4h ago
@albertcardona My understanding is that here in British Columbia, Canada, tuitions are set such that Canadian students pay approximately 50% of the cost of the education they receive, the rest coming from provincial tax revenue, whereas international student tuition is double that. Doesn't seem completely unreasonable to me, provided the uni comes through with good supports for international students' success.
Show threadAlbert Cardona3h ago

@Steve_Lindsay

It’s not unreasonable on paper, in considering the funding provided by the local states and institutions.

But in practice, for graduate school, at least in the UK, recruitment is impacted by the taboo issue that a major fraction of the best local undergrads go to the city to make money in finance, compounded with the fact that when selecting from a global pool, the fraction of locals among the very best applicants will be small (68 million in the UK vs 8,000 million globally).

For undergrads, there’s the issue of large socio-economic inequality, which is rampant in the UK and hinders development of a huge fraction of its teenagers into suitable candidates for undergraduate degrees. For top institutions to maintain their high thresholds for admissions, hiring from abroad is a necessity. Those 500 million in recruitment agents could have gone as well to local, underprivileged schools to bridge the gap, but then the shift in the home vs international distribution, given the massive fee difference, would bankrupt universities.