Albert Cardona2d ago

"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
Show threadSteve Lindsay
@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.
6:25pmWeb
Show threadAlbert Cardona5h 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.