SRHE Blog

The Society for Research into Higher Education

Tag Archives: international students


by Leave a comment

What emergency remote teaching revealed about how we treat international students

by Cosmin Nada, Thais França and Biana Lyrio

Universities around the world, and particularly in postcolonial contexts, are investing significantly in international student attraction. International students feature prominently in brochures, recruitment campaigns, and institutional rankings. But what happens when this spotlight fades and students are left to navigate systems that were never truly designed for them? Our recently-published article, The pandemic as a ‘revelatory crisis’ – the experiences of international students during emergency remote teaching in a postcolonial context, suggests that the COVID-19 pandemic made it impossible for HE stakeholders to continue turning a blind eye to the epistemic injustice and systemic exclusion of international students.  

The research examined the experiences of international students during the abrupt shift to emergency remote teaching (ERT) in Portuguese higher education (HE). Interviews were conducted with degree-seeking students from China, Brazil, Syria, and Portuguese-speaking African countries (Angola, Cabo Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique, and São Tomé and Príncipe), alongside focus group discussions across four Portuguese cities. To capture institutional perspectives, HE staff members were also interviewed. Drawing on critical pedagogical theories, rooted in the work of Paulo Freire and bell hooks, the article analyses how the pandemic did not merely create new problems but rather exposed and amplified inequalities that had been there all along.

One of the most striking findings of the article concerns the persistence of what Freire famously called the banking model of education: the idea that teaching means depositing knowledge into passive students. For international students, this dynamic takes on an added layer: it is not just any knowledge being deposited, but knowledge rooted in Western and Eurocentric frameworks, which is automatically positioned as inherently superior. The rich cultural, linguistic, and academic backgrounds that international students bring with them are routinely ignored or, worse, treated as deficits in need of correction. This is not merely a pedagogical shortcoming: it is a form of epistemic violence, rooted in colonial logics that continue to structure how knowledge is valued in most HE institutions worldwide.

The study also reveals that international students are often navigating educational systems that were not built for them. From curricula that assume a uniform cultural background to assessment methods that penalise linguistic diversity, HE institutions in Portugal – as in many other postcolonial contexts – treat international students as problems to be ‘managed’ rather than as valued members of the academic community. During ERT, these pre-existing deficit views and institutional stereotypes were dramatically amplified. Already struggling with the complexities of studying abroad, international students found themselves either invisible in the digital classroom or exposed to rigid pedagogies unadjusted to their needs. Moreover, the support systems that might have partially compensated for these failures in face-to-face settings vanished almost entirely in the online environment.

Rather than pointing the finger at individual HE staff, the study calls for a more systemic interpretation. Many of the HE educators we spoke with were themselves struggling, overwhelmed by the sudden transition to online teaching, often lacking both the digital skills and the pedagogical training to deal with diverse classrooms, while receiving minimal to no institutional support. This points to a significant elephant in the room in HE: in many contexts, including Portugal, academics become educators with little or no previous structured training in how teaching and learning works, let alone in how to engage meaningfully with diversity in the classroom. In other words, the decision to recruit international students is typically made at institutional level, yet the consequences of that decision fall on individual staff members who are given few resources and almost no preparation to adapt to the needs of diverse students.

Even well-intentioned educators, when operating within the colonial atmosphere that persists in most HE institutions and while lacking the pedagogical knowledge to do otherwise, end up reproducing oppressive practices. The findings show how transmissive, lecture-based, and non-interactive teaching methods – already dominant before the pandemic – were simply transferred to the online environment. When care, empathy, and dialogue are absent from pedagogy, even educators who genuinely seek to support their students can inadvertently reinforce the very exclusion they aim to prevent. Without deliberate and informed efforts to build inclusive classrooms, the default mode of teaching may be perpetuating the marginalisation of those who do not fit the assumed ‘norm’.

Perhaps the most uncomfortable finding of this study is what the pandemic revealed about contemporary internationalisation. Portuguese HE institutions – like many across the world – actively recruit international students following a neoliberal logic, treating them essentially as revenue sources. For instance, Portugal’s new International Student Statute marked a shift from viewing students from former colonies as beneficiaries of educational cooperation to positioning them as fee-paying customers. Yet, in this process, the pedagogical and institutional structures remained largely unchanged (and hence equally unwelcoming). During ERT, this contradiction became impossible to ignore: institutions prioritised continuity over quality, maintaining revenue streams while effectively abandoning any potential commitment to care-informed, culturally responsive teaching. Students repeatedly reported that, in such circumstances, their international mobility experience simply ‘wasn’t worth it’.

The article is clear that minor adjustments will not suffice. What is needed is a fundamental transformation of how HE institutions approach international students. Institutions must invest in equipping academic and non-academic staff with the necessary knowledge and competences in diversity and care-based pedagogies. In addition to staff training, it is fundamental that they create participatory structures where international students’ voices are heard and where they can actively contribute to curricular and pedagogical decisions as equal co-creators of knowledge.

The pandemic has passed, but the challenges it exposed remain. As universities now face new pressures – from the widespread use of artificial intelligence to geopolitical uncertainties, and to the reversal of internationalisation and cooperation agendas – the lessons from this crisis are more relevant than ever. If HE institutions are to remain meaningful actors in forming future generations of workers and citizens, they must stop treating students as commodities to be recruited and start working towards the provision of a truly meaningful and powerful learning experience for all.

Cosmin Nada is an education expert and researcher based at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa. With over a decade of experience in conducting research on education, he focuses on migration and education, diversity and inclusion, internationalisation of higher education, social justice, educational policies, and wellbeing in education.

Thais França is an Assistant Researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa. Her research focuses on the everyday experiences of racialised and gendered subjects. She is Vice Chair of the European Network on International Student Mobility and Coordinator of the Inclusion+ project (2024–2026): Tackling the Challenges of Erasmus+ Mobility Inclusion and Diversity at HE Level.

Biana Lyrio is a doctoral researcher at the Centre for Research and Studies in Sociology (ISCTE-IUL), Lisboa, funded by the Foundation for Science and Technology (FCT-Portugal). She is a doctoral student in Urban Studies, a joint programme between Iscte-IUL and the Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities of NOVA University Lisbon.


by Leave a comment

Changing landscape of international student mobility

by Hans de Wit, Philip G Altbach and Lizhou Wang

In its many diverse forms – including degree study, credit earning, branch campuses, and others – mobility remains a major aspect of international higher education. But mobility patterns are shifting. While the South-North movement remains primary at the world level, new patterns and modes are emerging. This blog describes these new patterns and their rationales. It is based on our chapter ‘International student mobility in a changing global environment: key issues and trends’, in: Simon Marginson, Catherine Montgomery, Alain Courtois and Ravinder Sidhu (eds), The Future of Cross Border Academic Mobilities and Immobilities: Power, Knowledge and Agency, published by Bloomsbury.

Notably, student and scholar mobility has become a mass enterprise, with more than six million students studying outside their countries in 2021 (UNESCO Institute for Statistics, 2024). But, although global student mobility is a significant factor and at the core of internationalisation efforts, it is limited to a small and mainly elite sector of the global student population. Six million global students represent a small proportion of the 254 million students pursuing higher education worldwide. Nevertheless, the mobility of learners, teachers, and scholars has always been a key dimension of higher education.

‘Internationally mobile students’ often refers to degree-mobile students who move to a foreign country for educational purposes and receive a foreign tertiary/higher education degree on a student visa. The predominant pattern of degree mobility at the world level has been from the Global South to the Global North, although there is also significant degree mobility within the Global North, in particular within Europe, and from the United States to Europe, as well as the reverse. Initially, the South to North flow consisted largely of small numbers of elites from colonies to the imperial countries. This movement increased significantly after independence, for example, students travelling to the UK and France. This kind of mobility also extended to other key Anglophone countries, including the United States, Canada, and Australia, which have maintained a dominant destination position. On the supply side, the fastest growth in outgoing students has been from Global South countries. From 1995 to 2010, the main sending countries worldwide were China, India, and Malaysia.

Shifting mobility patterns

While South-to-North and, to some extent, North-to-North mobility remain numerically dominant, there is a trend towards multipolarity and intra-regional student mobility. According to Van Mol et al (in E Recchi and M Safi (eds), (2024) Handbook of Human Mobility and Migration (pp 128–47). Cheltenham: Edward Elgar Publishers), the past fifteen years have witnessed a challenge to the hegemony of the Anglo-Saxon and Western countries, with new educational hubs gaining prominence. A more diverse set of countries now exerts greater relative influence in the overall student mobility network.

In particular, intra-regional mobility is growing in the South, from low-income towards middle-income countries. For China, the top senders are neighbours South Korea, Thailand, and Pakistan. For Russia, the top senders are nearby Kazakhstan, China, and Uzbekistan. Likewise, South Korea and Japan have become top study destinations for students from Vietnam, Indonesia, and Malaysia. For Argentina, all the top sending countries are also from South America: Brazil, Peru, Colombia, Paraguay, and Bolivia. Interestingly, some of the sending countries present themselves as new destinations, for instance, Kazakhstan and Vietnam. What drives these changes?

Macro-level drivers for international mobility

In the dynamic landscape of international higher education, macro-level factors, beyond the control of individual countries, higher education institutions (HEIs), and students, wield significant influence in changing mobility patterns. In many sending countries, the enhancement in higher education quality, along with economic development, plays an important role. For example, in East Asian countries, such as Japan and South Korea, the national higher education systems have now achieved excellent quality and become attractive study destinations for international students. And other countries follow.

Economic and financial considerations

Another global factor shaping the mobility landscape is the increasing commodification of education. Anglophone high-income countries have particularly benefited financially from this market. For example, in the academic year 2022–3, over one million international students at US colleges and universities contributed more than $40 billion to the US economy and supported more than 368,000 jobs (NAFSA, 2023). For the UK, the figure for the total economic contribution was £41.9 billion in the 2021/2 academic year (Higher Education Policy Institute, 2023).

At the same time, high living and tuition costs, coupled with increased xenophobia and visa and other restrictions in the Global North, have driven many students from the South to pursue education in non-Western nations where tuition and living costs are less expensive. These economic pull factors make the emerging study destinations attractive to many international students, especially those from middle-income and lower-income families.

Soft power and cultural influences

Many countries and institutions prioritise international student recruitment as a key target in their strategies for the internationalisation of higher education because of the value they place on securing soft power, cross-border cultural influence, and improved university rankings.

At the national level, countries utilise strategic policies and national agencies to promote international student recruitment and subsidize inbound mobility. Activities and initiatives involve various national actors that aim to build a comprehensive ecosystem in supporting immigration regulation, university cooperation, language training, and scholarships. Examples include the Indian government, which launched the Study in India flagship project in 2018 in collaboration with various government departments to enhance its global identity through international education initiatives. Similarly, the Education Plan in China’s Belt and Road Initiative showcases the political and diplomatic motivations behind its internationalisation strategy and international student recruitment.

Demographic change, labour market, and migration

For many countries in the Global North, significant demographic decline and the need for skilled labour have made it challenging to find sufficient talent domestically. Attracting talented international students, faculty, and professionals, as well as encouraging student retention, are often crucial strategies for higher education in high-income and middle-income countries.

Important in the above-mentioned factors are the many ways in which migration and student mobility cross over. Education functions as a significant migration doorway for a large minority of students moving from the Global South to the Anglophone countries. Tensions and controversies arise regarding international students’ post-study options, labour market needs, and immigration policies.

Complex and multilayered

In the words of Van Mol et al (2024, p141), international student mobility is ‘complex and multilayered’. It is influenced by a variety of changing contexts and related push and pull factors. There is no such archetype as ‘the international student’, as there are different forms of student, stakeholder roles, and motivations for mobility. In degree mobility, one can observe a gradual shift from a predominantly South-North movement towards a more diverse movement, with dominant sending countries, particularly in Asia, increasingly becoming receiving countries.

Revenue generation remains a dominant pull factor in the Anglophone higher education sector. Another key consideration is increasing the stay rate of international students so as to better meet skilled labour needs.

At the same time, geopolitical tensions, national security concerns, and nationalist anti-immigration sentiments and policies are becoming important obstacles to international student mobility. While international students and the revenues they generate are important in a few countries, perhaps more important to the global economy as a whole are patterns of high-skilled immigration related to student mobility. These patterns contribute to inequalities, impact remittances, influence scientific collaboration, and affect many other factors in numerous countries.

As countries navigate these complex dynamics, the strategic management of international student flows and integration of skilled graduates into the labour market will be crucial for maximising the benefits of global education and fostering international collaboration. Ultimately, understanding the evolving nature of international student mobility is essential for policymakers and educators who seek to enhance the internationalisation of higher education and address the broader challenges and opportunities it presents.

Hans de Wit is Emeritus Professor and Distinguished Fellow of the ‘Center for International Higher Education’ (CIHE) at Boston College. He is IAU Senior Fellow in the International Association of Universities (IAU) and Co-Editor of Policy Reviews in Higher Education (SRHE).

Philip G Altbach is Research Professor and Distinguished Fellow at the Center for International Higher Education at Boston College, where from 1994 to 2015 he was the Monan University Professor.

Lizhou Wang is an Assistant Professor at the Waseda Institute for Advanced Study, Waseda University, Japan. Lizhou conducts research on the internationalisation of higher education, including international mobility and research collaboration.


by 1 Comment

The blurred lines of higher education in South Korea: when colleges look like universities

by Edward Choi and Young Jae Kim

South Korea has become an attractive destination for international students, boasting a strong higher education system with internationally recognised universities. A complication, however, is emerging with some foreign students enrolling in what they believe are universities, only to later discover that they are attending junior colleges, Korea’s flagship vocational institutions.

This phenomenon may be linked to changes in institutional marketing (identity branding) and key organizational characteristics at junior colleges and universities alike. Many colleges have removed words like “technical” or “vocational” from their names and are now called universities in both Korean and English. They have also expanded their degree offerings to include bachelor’s and, in some cases, even graduate programs.

The blurring of identities (and institutional traits) and the implications thereof are a focus of our study, Confusion in the Marketplace: A Study of Institutional Isomorphism and Organisational Identity in South Korea (Choi and Kim, 2024). Through a national, statistical overview and the content analysis of select institutional websites, we examined the dimensions along which South Korean colleges and universities are organizationally isomorphic, a concept that describes how organizations begin to resemble each other as a result of external pressures (see DiMaggio and Powell, 1983). Importantly, we discuss in our article the market implications for this type of institutional convergence.

Key changes or dimensions of likeness

Nearly all colleges (95%) have rebranded themselves with the term “university” in their Korean names, and 61% have done so in English. Colleges now offer bachelor’s-equivalent degrees, with 92% providing such programs, and some even offering graduate degrees (11%). Both colleges and universities emphasise similar disciplines, including Business Administration, Family & Social Welfare, and Mechanical Engineering, reflecting shared market demands.

Institutional websites suggest colleges and universities adopt similar marketing strategies, emphasising employment outcomes and industry-academic collaboration. Less selective universities resemble colleges in focusing on job-market relevance in research and academic programming. Both institution types operate in local, national, and international spheres with internationalisation efforts at both types.

There are key differences to note. Some universities, particularly elite ones, highlight intellectual growth and social development as a societal role in vision and other identity statements. Research at especially elite universities is both applied and humanities-focused, while this is not true in the case of colleges and lower-tier universities. Furthermore, internationalisation at universities is mostly about citizenship and cultural development while the same is less cultural but utilitarian at colleges (eg career development through international field placements).

Why are junior colleges becoming more like universities?

We discuss several key reasons behind the organisational sameness among Korea’s colleges and universities. One key factor is South Korea’s shrinking student population. With birth rates at record lows, the number of high school graduates has plummeted, creating a crisis for universities and junior colleges alike (Lee, 2024) and forcing these institutions to compete directly for a shrinking pool of students. The offering of baccalaureate degrees and graduate programming, among other organizational changes, may serve as primary examples of survival strategies amid the changing demographics. The same may be said of universities where there is a strong vocational dimension in academic offerings, much like what we see at colleges.

Government policies (both historical and contemporaneous) have also played a major role in the Korean case of institutional isomorphism. Such policy directions have pushed both universities and junior colleges to align their offerings with workforce demands (Ministry of Education, 2023d, 2024a). In 2008 the government approved bachelor’s-equivalent degrees for junior colleges, allowing them to offer advanced major courses. In 2022, junior colleges were even permitted to introduce graduate programs, further blurring the distinction between these institutions and universities.

Additionally, South Korea’s push for internationalisation amid globalisation has encouraged universities and junior colleges alike to aggressively market themselves to international students. The country has set ambitious national goals for attracting students from abroad (ICEF, 2023); as a result, both institutional types are using similar branding strategies. Words like “world-class,” “global,” and “innovative” appear frequently on websites, even in the case of junior colleges like Kyung-in Women’s University, an institution with virtually negligible global recognition or research excellence.

The risks of blurred identities

A key concern with blurred identities and institutional characteristics (including social roles) is that they can create confusion for international students who are increasingly looking to Korea as an attractive education destination. For students seeking a traditional university experience, this can lead to disappointment and even financial and academic setbacks, not to mention reputational damages to Korea and its higher education system.

There is also the issue of mission creep, where junior colleges in their efforts to emulate universities, risk losing sight of their normative societal function. Junior colleges have historically complemented universities in increasing access to education and providing job training for students who might not otherwise pursue higher education (see Brint and Karabel, 1989; Dougherty, 1994; Lee, 1992). This mission is at stake. The accretion and expansion of new and existing programs and services, respectively, require invariably additional resources, which might drive up educational costs. Many prospective students may not be able to afford these fee hikes.

What to make of institutional isomorphism?

At the end of the day, students want a quality education and meaningful career opportunities. It is important for them to clearly understand what they are signing up for – given how important higher education is to shaping their career trajectories. Policy discussions at the national level must now consider the global character of Korea’s junior colleges, whose cosmetic and organisational changes can impact international mobility patterns. Clearer differentiation from a policy perspective is needed in this regard.

We must not ignore the positive implications of institutional isomorphism, whose market advantages have not been fully explored by scholars. We argue that institutional isomorphism – particularly where college and university programs converge – can be strategically utilised as a policy lever to address market challenges. Rather than viewing institutional homogenization as inherently problematic, policymakers could use it to correct market inefficiencies like supply and demand challenges. The shortage of nurses in Korea (see Lee, 2023), for example, is likely being addressed through the joint efforts of colleges and universities in training and producing nurses with similar qualifications.

Unchecked isomorphism, however, has its challenges, as pointed out earlier (ie confusion in the international student marketplace). We are also concerned about a skills mismatch where colleges and universities are pumping out graduates with homogenised skillsets. This type of sub-optimisation can result in high youth unemployment rates and students working in careers unrelated to their academic majors, which are already concerns in Korea (see Sungmin and Lee, 2023).

To conclude, our study notes that institutional isomorphism is a global phenomenon, with similar trends observed in countries such as China, the US, and Australia (see Bae, Grimm, and Kim, 2023; Bük, Atakan-Duman, and Paşamehmetoğlu, 2017; Hartley and Morphew, 2008; Saichaie and Morphew, 2014; Taylor and Morphew, 2010). Further research is needed to assess whether isomorphism in higher education lends to competitive market advantages beyond Korea.

Edward Choi is an Assistant Professor at Underwood International College, Yonsei University. His research interests centre on a range of topics: Korean higher education, traditional Korean education, the internationalisation of higher education, and the global phenomenon of family-owned universities. 

Young Jae Kim was a student at Underwood International College, Yonsei University.


by 1 Comment

Interest rate changes could challenge universities, student loans and post 16 and vocational education

by Sir Adrian Webb

The publication on 13 September 2023 of the House of Lords Industry and Regulators Committee report on the Office for Students drew attention to the financial challenges facing universities in the UK and to the challenges associated with regulating and overseeing these risks.  

This week we look set to see these challenges increase with the possible increase in the  base interest rates by the Bank of England (the “Bank Rate”) to 5.5% when the Monetary Policy Committee next meets on Thursday 21st September (Guardian, Financial Times, 24 August 2023 ). If there is another 0.25% increase in the base rate, as is widely anticipated, this will place government and university finances under further pressure over the next few years with significant negative implications for HE students, the UK Government’s education budget in general and the further education college budget in particular. Furthermore, this anticipated rise in the Bank Rate may not be the last of these increases if Government spending remains high and inflationary pressures persist through the winter months. 

The most immediate and direct effect will be on the interest payments that universities need to pay on short term loans. According to HESA, average HE provider debt as a proportion of turnover stands at 0.16%, but with highs of 454% and lows of 0%, with unrestricted reserves of 204% of income (HESA, 2023). Of course, financial indicators expressed as a percentage of income for institutions of very variable sizes give no feel for the absolute amount of cash owed, or the annual cost of repayments.  

The top 13 higher education providers by percentage of debt are all small private institutions; most have recorded deficits in recent years and appear to have low levels of cash available to cover running costs. The next 35 institutions by scale of debt all have debt levels of over 50% of turnover. Among these institutions there are 22 large pre- and post-92 universities in all parts of the UK.  

The challenges presented by potential increases in interest payments will be exacerbated over the next two years by the continued decline in the real value of student tuition fees, limitations on the recruitment of overseas students with dependants and a decline in the proportion of students applying to low and mid-tariff universities.  

When student tuition fees were first introduced, HE providers were encouraged to set fees at between £6,000 and £9,000 per annum. Some price competition between institutions was expected but in practice the vast majority set their fees at the higher level. Recent analysis by Mark Corver of DataHE, an independent higher education consultancy, indicates that the real level of fees that higher education providers charge students as tuition fees has dropped below £6,000 if the value is deflated by the Retail Prices Index (RPI), slightly higher if other measures of inflation are used.

Over the last five years, many HE providers have been attempting to cover the reduced value of undergraduate home tuition fee income by recruiting larger number of international students, particularly from China, India and Nigeria. This approach has attracted large numbers of students to the most selective universities and those in major cities; many universities now have more than 25% of their students recruited from these sources. The announcement of restrictions on the release of temporary visas to support the dependents of international students has already had an impact on the recruitment of people from overseas who want to study at UK universities.. This impact looks set to continue and increase in 2024. 

To illustrate the issues faced by the more highly indebted institutions with a significant number of international students, consider the composite case of the University of Camberwick Green, with net debt of circa £200m and current loans with a weighted average debt cost of 3.5%. If this institution needed to renew all of its existing debt obligations this would likely double the costs of debt servicing from £7million to at least £14million. This would mean an additional annual outlay as a proportion of turnover in excess of 5%, dependent on the interest rates agreed with lenders and the term of their loan (e.g. revolving credit facility, private placement, bond or bank lending).  For a university like Camberwick Green, which has also recorded large operating deficits in recent years, additional debt is likely to be more expensive and so the short-term options are likely to focus on selling assets or laying off staff; these are not easy or attractive options. Changes to course portfolios and/or increased international student recruitment and transnational operations are unlikely to produce the necessary returns quickly and without undue financial or reputational risk.  

The more prestigious and selective universities in the more affluent parts of the UK are unlikely to face pressures that are likely to bear down hard on those which are, by conventional measures, less prestigious and less selective, in parts of the UK that engaged in levelling up activities with significant HE involvement. The impacts of high indebtedness, declining student recruitment and operating deficits are already being felt with significant redundancies planned at ten universities. 

The next most significant impact of higher interest rates will be on student loan repayments and the arrangements for funding this activity. The student loan book currently stands at £206bn with an additional £20bn of loans being issued each year. The internal real interest rate charged on these loan arrangements by HM Treasury, i.e. the real discount rate (excluding inflation), was set at -0.7% in 2021 at the height of the Covid crisis and remains the rate proposed in the Plan 5 changes scheduled to come into place during 2024. The nominal discount rate taking account of inflation is 1.9%. If Bank of England interest rates and by consequence HM Treasury bond/gilt rates move to 6.25% in 2024, as has been forecast, and the student loan rate is changed as a consequence, this will create an adverse upward movement in real interest rate charges on the loan book of circa 5%. Dependent on the scheduling of the loans this will then feed through into the calculation of the principal debt students are required to repay and also the Resource Allocation Budget (RAB) charge paid by the UK Government on loans that are forecast not to be repaid. Under revised accounting rules introduced in 2021, a proportion of this increased RAB charge will need to be accounted for in the national deficit in the year it is incurred and cannot be delayed until the loan matures. With forecast increases in the scale of the student loan book through to the next decade there are likely to be powerful voices in the Treasury wishing to pay down this debt or reduce the scale of its growth. This in turn is likely to mean a need to revisit the current arrangements in advance of the next HM Treasury Comprehensive Spending Review (CSR) in 2025. 

The current loan book is financed in part by the spread (difference) between the notional interest rate charged to students on loans they have taken out, which is currently set with some reference to the Prevailing Market Rate (PMR) for commercial loans, and the lower rate paid by the Treasury for its borrowings. The PMR was set at 7.3% in February 2023 and confirmed at this level for the period between September and November 2023 on 11th August. . At present the Bank of England Bank Rate is 5.3% and so the spread between the student loan rate and the Bank Rate was 2%. If a similar spread is expected if  the base rate rises further to 6.25% the PMR could be 8.25% or even higher. Interest rates at this level would make almost all student loans un-repayable, effectively converting the loan system into a graduate tax confined to new students and also potentially introducing a significant element of “moral hazard” as many students would face little incentive to do anything other than maximise their student loans. Given that they will never repay them; they will face an additional marginal loan repayment (tax) rate of 9% on undergraduate loans and 6% on postgraduate loans, so why not take out as much loan as possible and complete a postgraduate taught or research degree, even when the economic returns to them individually and to the public purse are negative. Beyond this “moral hazard” argument there is also arguably a “moral outrage” argument to be had about imposing an age-related differential income tax rate on younger people who are recent graduates. 

The problems outlined above are then likely to be heightened by forecast increases in the number of prospective undergraduate students entering the system over the next seven years.  In 2021/2022 there were 2.16 million U.K. domiciled students in UK HE institutions and a further 0.68 million students from the EU and other overseas countries. By 2030 the number of UK domiciled students is expected to increase by between 200,000 and 400,000 as a consequence of increases in the number of people in the relevant age groups. This would be at an average additional cost per student of at least £60,000 per three-year undergraduate degree, based on loans for tuition fees of 3 x £9,250 and for maintenance of 3 x up to £13,022 for students living away from home in London. Many students study for longer than three years on foundation and/or masters programmes, hence the forecast of £60,000 per student. This is an additional annual cost of loan outlay of £12bn or more. This seems unlikely to be fundable. 

The implication of these cost pressures would be serious enough if they were confined to HE, but they are not. Far from it. At present the growing costs of HE are being paid for by other parts of the UK Government’s education budget, resulting in real terms cuts to the further education budget, consequent low rates of pay for FE college staff, and cuts to the adult education budget. In adult education, FE and apprenticeship provision pay rates are set locally rather than nationally and so reductions in institutional budgets in this part of the education sector have tended to be accommodated by falling wages and unfilled vacancies rather than through redundancies as has been the case in the university sector. These different parts of the post-school education system are making greater use of part-time and temporary contracts and precarious jobs. This at a time when the need for more and better vocational education is increasingly widely recognised and the need for “industry standard” staff capable of delivering the new and upgraded skills required by rapid technological change has never been greater.  

Across the UK 70% of adults have not been to university, but like many older graduates they would benefit from the opportunity to take a course at a local college or other adult education provider. With 20% of the adult working age population (5 million people) currently economically inactive and with chronic skills shortages in all parts of economy it is very worrying that the pay of college lecturers in catering, construction, digital, engineering, health and social care is considerably below the rates paid to comparably skilled people working in the private sector. Employers in the UK spend on average 50% less than their counterparts in mainland Europe on workforce education and training. The combination of reductions in employer spending on training and cuts in UK Government funding for FE and apprenticeships has led to a reduction of over 1 million student places in adult education, apprenticeships and FE per year in the last ten years. This is not the position the UK needs to be in to improve productivity. Indeed, it is the very opposite of what is required to support such mission – let alone to promote inclusive and sustainable economic growth.  

Who is responsible for monitoring and governing this system? At the moment the financial position of individual universities is overseen by their governing bodies, aided by internal and external auditors predominantly drawn in combinations of two of the big four audit firms. The Office for Students (OfS) monitors the financial position of individual higher education providers as part of its regulatory function, but it is not formally required to intervene financially at an early stage to support institutions in difficulties. It may issue a requirement to improve the plans for protecting students, but it is not required to prevent an institution from failing. The Student Loan Company (SLC) is overseen by an independent board and supported by a representative from the sponsoring departments in the UK’s national governments (i.e. Department for Education, Scottish Government, Welsh Government and Northern Ireland Office in the absence of the Northern Ireland Executive). Whether the OfS, national regulators in the devolved nations or the SLC have modelled the scenarios outlined in this note is a moot point. Indeed, it is more of a mute point because no one is publicly talking about these issues and the problems that go with them in a joined-up way with a long-term perspective. It would be helpful if they did, and if there was a debate about the consequences for higher and further education providers and student loans of the return to real interest rates more in-keeping with the long run historical average. Given the commitment of central banks around the world to move in this direction after 15 years of ultra-low interest rates there is a pressing need for a comprehensive review of where we are heading and what needs to be done about it. 

As we approach a General Election in 2024, now is the time for the major political parties in the UK to commit to the appointment of a Royal Commission or equivalent to look at these issues with an impartial, sector neutral and critical eye.  Over the last hundred years all major changes of this type have proceeded in this way (i.e. Smith Report 1919, White Paper on Education 1943, Robbins Review 1964, Dearing Review 1997 and Browne Review 2011). Indeed, in 1997 Gillian Sheppard (Conservative minister) and David Blunkett (prospective Labour minister) agreed in the run up to the General election to respect the Dearing Committee proposals. A similar arrangement was reached regarding the Browne Review between Peter Mandelson (Labour Minister) and George Osborne (prospective Conservative Minister) in the run up to the general election in 2010.  The settlements in 1944 and 1963 were similarly effectively cross-party. This is a fundamental issue for the future of the UK and deserves to be made non-political with recommendations for the long term. Previous reviews have produced long term plans which have been implemented when they had cross-party support and straddled a General election. 

Sir Adrian Webb was an academic at the London School of Economics and Loughborough University; he was Deputy Vice Chancellor at Loughborough and Vice Chancellor at the University of Glamorgan. As well as holding a number of senior management positions and a wide range of public service/consultancy roles in local and central government (including HM Treasury, DHSS, Home Office, DFES, and the Ministry of Justice) and in Wales, he has also held many roles in the Third Sector. Sir Adrian was a member of the Dearing Review committee in the late 1990s and chaired a review of further education colleges and funding in Wales in 2007. 

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of any organisation with which the author is affiliated.  


by Leave a comment

Research with international students: reflecting on an SRHE 2022 symposium

by Jenna Mittelmeier, Sylvie Lomer, and Kalyani Unkule

We were pleased to lead a symposium of international authors at the 2022 SRHE conference, focusing on Research with International Students: Conceptual and Methodological Considerations. This was an early session linked for our upcoming open access book of the same name, which we aim to publish in late 2023. This book, as well as our research resource website which led to it, focuses on developing critical considerations for researchers who focus their work on international students and their experiences in higher education.

Research with international students is a significant and growing area of research about higher education. This coincides with and derives from the exponential growth in international student numbers worldwide, making more visible an interest in their lived academic and social experiences. This is also an area that continues to attract newer researchers, particularly doctoral and student researchers who may have a vested interest in this topic as current or former international students themselves, and practitioner researchers who teach and support international students in their professional roles. Research on this topic is interdisciplinary (as with most other higher education research topics), attracting researchers from disciplines including education, sociology, psychology, human geography, business, and beyond.

Despite this growing interest, we note that there have been limited conversations about developing research with international students as a distinct interdisciplinary subfield. Similarly, there have been limited methodological guidance and considerations for how research might critically approach the wide-ranging topics that are being researched in this area. We have written previously about how these omissions perpetuate problems for this subfield and, ultimately, diminish the potential impact of research.

The most significant problem with research in this area is that it tends to frame international students through a deficit lens, depicting them as lower quality students who ‘lack’ skills necessary for success. This is seen through the large numbers of studies which attempt to ‘fix’ or ‘integrate’ international students into expected norms of study in their host institutions, making assumptions about their perceived lack of skills in areas such as critical thinking, language, or writing. International students are also often depicted through research as only experiencing challenges or problems, frequently described as vulnerable rather than capable, managing, or coping. At the same time, research tends to homogenise international students as a collective group or deduce their diversity only to nationality and macro-level cultures. These are among other conceptual concerns we have previously highlighted, which are rooted in limited criticality and nuance through research.

With these issues in mind, our aim in the symposium, as well as through our website and book, was to start a conversation about how research with international students might be designed better, more critically, and more ethically. In particular, we considered the nexus between conceptual criticality and practical methodological designs which can reposition and encourage new discourses about international students. Each of the four presentations highlighted how, within the book, we encourage researchers to develop stronger research designs in the future.

The first paper in the symposium was by Kalyani Unkule, whose presentation represented chapters in our upcoming book where authors re-conceptualise an idea or term that is often taken for granted in research with international students. Here, we argue for the ways that certain ideas within this research topic are often assumed to have a shared, collective meaning, which actually might be more nuanced or complex. Kalyani reflected on the meaning of the word ‘global’ and the tendency for binaries of local and global to limit our thinking in research and practice about international higher education. This is an important critique about the ways that ‘home’ and ‘international’ are seen as opposing binaries in research with international students, ultimately limiting the conceptual nuance of where students’ experiences and histories might intersect these two areas and be more ‘glocal’ in nature.

The second paper was by Tang Heng, whose presentation represented chapters which highlight problematic discourses that shape and frame research with international students. Her chapter focuses on stereotyping and how stereotypes about international students, often through methodological nationalism, are endemic in the ways that research is developed and designed. Tang focused particularly on how theoretical frameworks can perpetuate or relate to stereotyping, but in the book we also focus on other problematic threads through research on this topic: othering, dehumanisation, coloniality, and deficit narratives, among others. This highlights the issues that hold the research subfield back and represent areas for more critical development and reflection in future research.

This was followed by a paper from Vijay Ramjattan, whose presentation represented chapters in the book which show how common stereotypes and discourses about international students might be shifted away from individual deficiencies towards recognition of structural inequalities. Vijay’s presentation focused on deficit framings of language, where international students are often positioned as ‘lacking’ linguistic skills. However, this might be shifted instead to focus on structural oppression of multilingualism and multiple Englishes within institutions. This gives us one example of how researchers can conceptually move away from issues like biases, stereotyping, and deficit narratives by centring the structural roots that cause them.

Finally, the presentation by Samridhi Gupta and Thuy-Anh Nguyen shifted the focus towards practical research designs, demonstrating the section in our book which focuses on how research design choices can purposefully resist existing problems in knowledge creation with (rather than on or about) international students. Their presentation focused on co-designing research with international students, giving practical examples of two research methods which can be designed with students as partners. This demonstrates the ways that methodological choices are fundamentally intertwined with conceptual criticality, highlighting how the method we choose can resist and deconstruct the existing problems set out by previous presenters.

Together, our symposium aimed to open up new reflections and considerations for the historical trajectory of research with international students, considering new ways forward for the research subfield. Both the symposium and our upcoming book aims not to give answers for how to move that path forward, though, but rather to open up questions for individual researchers and the research community more broadly about where we might like to go from here. We ask, then: what should the epistemic space of research with international students look like?

More research resources on this topic can be found at https://researchintlstudents.com/. ‘Research with international students: Critical conceptual and methodological considerations’ will be published open access by Routledge, aiming for late 2023.

Jenna Mittelmeier is Senior Lecturer in International Education at the University of Manchester, in the Manchester Institute of Education (MIE). Her research expertise focuses on the experiences and treatment of international students within the broader internationalisation of higher education.

Sylvie Lomer is Senior Lecturer in Policy and Practice at the University of Manchester, in the Manchester Institute of Education (MIE). Her previous research focused on policies on international students in the UK, and now focuses more broadly on internationalisation in policy and practice in higher education, with a critical approach to pedagogy and policy enactment. 

Kalyani Unkule is Associate Professor at OP Jindal Global University in India. Her research complements her practice in intercultural dialogue and impact-driven projects in higher education internationalisation and spiritual learning.


by Leave a comment

How do we teach international students in the UK?

by Sylvie Lomer and Jenna Mittelmeier

  • Sylvie Lomer
  • Jenna Mittelmeier

This has been the guiding question for our current SRHE-funded research project. We are looking at how pedagogies and practices have been developed or shaped within the context of changing student demographics across the UK higher education sector. We have conducted 40 out of the 50 planned interviews and have really appreciated academics’ time and enthusiasm during a completely unprecedented semester. Our data collection and analysis continue but we wanted to communicate early findings and the types of language used by participants to communicate their pedagogy.

Many of our participants taught predominantly, or talked mainly about, postgraduate teaching, where students’ professional or life experience was frequently highlighted as important. The limitation with our participant sampling so far is an overrepresentation of applied disciplines (education, business, health-related, etc) and an underrepresentation of ‘pure’ disciplines (physics, maths, philosophy, etc) (Biglan, 1973). It’s quite possible that this represents a teaching approach that’s dominant in certain disciplines and not others.

Teaching approaches

Most participants represented their teaching in strikingly similar ways. Through careful reflection on the key information that needs to be ‘delivered or conveyed’, lecturers sought to maximise the amount of class time spent on ‘real learning’, which was understood to happen primarily in social or group settings. There appears to be consensus across the disciplines, institutions, and geographic locations of participants that an active and social approach to learning is optimal.

We anticipated variation across disciplines and contexts in the pedagogical approaches adopted by lecturers working with international students, but most participants have described largely similar approaches to managing their physical classrooms in pre-COVID times. These are commonly characterised by:

  • Chunking talking time and lectures into ‘gobbets’ of 15-20 minutes
  • Following up with small group activities (eg discussions or concrete tasks)
  • Concluding with plenary or whole group feedback

Sometimes this pattern was repeated during longer teaching sessions. Pedagogies were also mediated in different ways: through technology; with the help of teaching assistants; or in collaboration with a range of campus services. Yet, the core of how most participants represented their teaching has shown striking similarity, with reflection on the importance of social or group settings.

Participants reported challenges in implementing their approaches, particularly given that massification and growing class sizes have largely coincided with international student recruitment. Infrastructure, such as lecture theatres with fixed seating, was also commonly criticized as a limitation to pedagogy. Adaptations to online or hybrid classrooms during Covid-19 included ‘flipped’ approaches where readings or recordings were available initially online, with ‘live’ sessions designed to be solely interactive.

Representations of international students

We explored how the presence of international students influences the micro and macro practices of lecturer; in that respect, how we define ‘international students’ has been a prominent angle of questioning. Most participants defaulted to using the term as adopted in the press and public policy – non-EU degree level students. However, they also highlighted other groups of students who may also be subsumed by the international label – EU students, short-term students on exchanges or top-up programmes, and students classified as British by residency but who have been primarily educated overseas. These nuances matter, because, as participants highlight, the key point is not what students’ nationality is, but what their previous educational experiences are.

Challenges around ‘cultures of deference’ to the authority of teachers and texts were highlighted, as well as individual confidence and skills to participate orally in discussions. While some participants referred to common stereotypes of, for example, ‘silent’ Chinese students, others were quick to challenge deficit-based assumptions. The latter tended to describe the perceived benefits of having international students across cohorts and unpack the diversity of experiences that underlie such stereotyping. Diversity, in this regard, was often described as a ‘learning resource’ (Harrison, 2018), whereby international students were assumed to support classroom learning environments by sharing knowledge and experiences from their country or culture.

An alternative consideration noted by a smaller number of participants is that students should not be seen as embodiments of some abstracted form of national culture (Lomer, 2017), but rather through recognising that people are different and know different things. Some participants criticised the  binary distinction – created by fee and visa restrictions – between ‘home’ and ‘overseas’ students, given that factors which affect learning are more likely to be a culmination of previous educational experience, language, and confidence – of which none fall neatly between political borders. In that regard, participants highlighted the importance of ‘good teaching’ and a desire to develop an inclusive ‘ethos’ which works for all students.

We asked participants what they feel makes a good teacher, and were surprised to see relatively similar responses between participants, regardless of their career stage or teaching contexts. Their responses emphasised empathy, reflexivity, humility, curiosity, disciplinary passion, and the capacity to value difference. However, there was less reflection about how key learning outcomes might be underpinned by Eurocentric assumptions about education or students’ behaviours, or how things like critical thinking or academic integrity may be culturally shaped.

Reflections on professional identity

A final consideration for this project is how lecturers’ professional identities are shaped by their work with international students. Participants reflected on the loneliness of being ‘the pedagogy person’ or ‘the internationalisation person’ in departments or schools. In such contexts, some told stories about past and current colleagues or other academics in their networks who voiced explicitly racist views about international students. Most suggested these were now outliers and that the dominant discourse has changed towards a more positive view of international students.

Language used by academics when communicating the implementation of active and social learning approaches with international students positions the academic as in control and the (international) student as subaltern. For example, many participants spoke in terms of ‘being strict’, ‘setting expectations’, ‘forcing them to speak’. This was often explained with reference to meeting key learning outcomes or developing professional skills, but sits in contrast with the more emancipatory discourses often associated with student-centred approaches to teaching.

Earlier career academics have only ever taught in a highly internationalised sector, while those with a longer professional experience reflected on the change they had seen during their career. For most, internationalisation was reflected as a fact of contemporary academic life; some commented that they hadn’t thought about the particularities of teaching international students before their interview with us. For some, this was a characteristic of the discipline, particularly those in areas like business and international development; they positioned their subjects as inherently international, with assumptions that internationalised teaching followed ‘naturally’.

Get involved

The responses so far have been encouraging and suggest that, across UK institutions, academics are dedicated to: developing pedagogies that value diversity on multiple axes; working with international students; and valuing the knowledge and perspectives that an international student group can co-create.

We are still collecting data and would love to hear from anyone who teaches international students in any UK HEI, but particularly if you:

  • Teach in a STEM or Arts subject
  • Teach in Wales or Northern Ireland
  • Disagree with or don’t recognise the account above or have a different viewpoint.

All responses are strictly confidential, although participants will be invited to participate in a webinar at the end of the project.

We are working on building up a repository of case studies about teaching innovations with international students, hosted here, and welcome submissions from all (even if you do not wish to participate in an interview). Contact sylvie.lomer@manchester.ac.uk or jenna.mittelmeier@manchester.ac.uk for more information.

SRHE member Sylvie Lomer is Lecturer in Policy and Practice at the University of Manchester, in the Manchester Institute of Education (MIE). Her previous research focused on policies on international students in the UK, and now focuses more broadly on internationalisation in policy and practice in higher education, with a critical approach to pedogogy and policy enactment.

SRHE member Jenna Mittelmeier is Lecturer in International Education at the University of Manchester, in the Manchester Institute of Education (MIE). Her research expertise focus broadly on the internationalisation of higher education,  taking a critical perspective on issues of power, privilege, and ethics in international higher education.

Our thanks to Parise Carmichael-Murphy for reviewing the blog before it was submitted.

References

Biglan, Anthony (1973) ‘The characteristics of subject matter in different academic areas’, Journal of Applied Psychology 57(3): 195

Harrison, N (2015) ‘Practice, problems and power in ‘internationalisation at home’: Critical reflections on recent research evidence’, Teaching in Higher Education, 20(4), 412-430


by Leave a comment

Time to take the issue of China into our hands

by Paul Temple

Before it was transferred to The British Museum in 2009, the Percival David collection of Chinese porcelain was displayed in one of the Bloomsbury houses of the University of London, on the corner of Gordon Square. I once asked the SOAS curator for an idea of how important the collection was: he considered for a moment and then said that the only comparable one was in the Summer Palace in Beijing.

I thought about this when reading the recent HEPI report, UK Universities and China, which, perhaps naturally enough, is located in the here-and-now in terms of Sino-British university relations. But we should recall that China has been on the agenda for British universities from at least the late nineteenth-century, with SOAS’s predecessor, the School of Oriental Studies, being founded in 1916.

What new insights on this long-standing relationship does this HEPI collection of essays offer? It almost seems as if the editor provided his authors with a template for their chapters on the lines of:

  1. Remind readers of China’s growing global importance economically and in scientific research.
  2. Mention China’s ancient cultural traditions; more recently, changes within China from the 1980s gave some cause for optimism.
  3. Unfortunately though, Xi Jinping has not turned out to be the enlightened social democratic leader we had hoped for.
  4. In particular, nasty things seem to be happening in Xinjiang, and Hong Kong’s future doesn’t look too bright either.
  5. Meanwhile, many western universities have allowed themselves to become dependent on Chinese money: who knew?
  6. Even so, we must defend our academic values of free speech and fearless investigation, even at the cost of upsetting President Xi.
  7. Problem is, how to reconcile (5) and (6): no easy answers – or actually answers of any sort.
  8. So UK universities maybe need to develop a common strategy towards China. No, seriously.

Does this list – which is of course completely unfair to the authors involved – depress you as much as it depresses me? The essential tension that underlies most of the chapters is that between (5) and (6) in my list – acknowledged more by some authors than others. How have we got ourselves into this situation?

In an SRHE blog of mine which appeared in December 2019, I charted the way public policies in Britain had shifted in the post-war decades from central planning models – whether in utilities, transport, health, education at all levels, and more – to market-based models. Our present “China syndrome” in universities is a direct result of this policy shift: British governments and universities have created the problem – it is not simply because of the global geopolitical changes described by several of the authors here.

It is noteworthy that all the authors in the HEPI study appear to take it for granted that UK universities (actually, the chapter on Australian universities by Salvatore Babones paints an even more concerning picture of the situation there) must receive income from Chinese student fees to survive. But it wasn’t like this once, and doesn’t have to be like it now. This is a recent development: if say twenty years ago you had predicted that British university teachers would soon routinely be lecturing to majority-Chinese classes of maybe a hundred students, people would have thought you were crazy. This situation has arisen entirely because universities were instructed by successive governments to behave as if they were commercial entities, seeking to maximise income from all possible sources, seemingly regardless of the risks involved.

When universities and the then polytechnics were funded through central planning models they did of course admit students from abroad, but in limited numbers. There was no financial incentive to expand numbers, and the planning models assumed certain total student numbers that were funded from various public sources. In some places, international students were in effect funded partially by the host university, after the Thatcher government stopped public funding of their fees in 1980. The assumption until then was that Britain had a responsibility to help poorer countries by providing subsidised education to their nationals and that there would be long-term benefits all round as a result. I’m not arguing that this was a perfect model – simply that there are alternatives to the present arrangements, that once upon a time did actually work.

Don’t get me wrong: China is a fascinating place and I’ve been privileged to meet many Chinese academics in their own universities and to teach Chinese students in London. I’m all in favour of engagement with Chinese peoples and their cultures. But if the nature of British universities is going to change as a result of this engagement, then there should be a frank and open discussion about it. It should not be allowed to happen as if by accident.

SRHE member Paul Temple is Honorary Associate Professor, Centre for Higher Education Studies, UCL Institute of Education, University College London. See his latest paper ‘University spaces: Creating cité and place’, London Review of Education, 17 (2): 223–235 at https://doi.org/10.18546


by Leave a comment

Why the UK must up its game when it comes to recruiting international students

By Sylvie Lomer & Terri Kim

This article was first published on conversation on 5 June 2018

International students make billions of pounds for the UK economy and help open up a window on the world to domestic students. That’s apparently why universities are supposed to recruit them, according to government policy. Yet international students are at risk because of the government’s ‘hostile environment’ to migration and because of the way the sector recruits them.

Graph

This is a risky proposition for a sector that relies on reputation, as future students could see this country as using them as cash-cows instead of valued partners. An alternative vision of ethical student recruitment would not only be morally sound, it would be economically and educationally sustainable too.

More is not always better

Success is often defined as growth. Policy on international students has in the past often set goals for increased numbers of students. For many institutions increasing numbers is a key indicator of success.

This growth can only be sustained if the supply of students keeps expanding. But population growth in the UK’s single most important market, China, is slowing down.

True, economic growth in key countries (such as China and India) which send students to the UK suggests growing middle classes. Middle class students tend to seek international education to gain an advantage in tough job markets. And – more importantly – they can afford it. But as the middle classes expand, so too does the domestic provision of higher education in such “sending” countries. Historically, the UK has been seen as “the” destination for quality higher education. But as education quality in the “sending” countries improves, the UK will gradually lose this advantage. So the UK cannot define its success in recruiting international students exclusively based on growth.

New competitors

Competitive success means outdoing other providers and growing the market share. For the last decade, the UK has held second place to the US, recruiting 11% of globally mobile students (see below graphic).

graph2Global market share of internationally mobile students for leading study destinations, 2016. IIE/Project Atlas (2017)

But rival countries are constantly changing their strategies and policies on recruitment and new competitors are entering the market. Japan, South Korea, India, China and Malaysia now all attract significant numbers of students. Seeking to gain market share against competitors then becomes a perpetual arms race.

No perfect number

There is no perfect number or ratio of international to home students. For a start, international students are concentrated in particular subjects, like business studies (see below graphic).

graph3International student numbers by subject area 2016-17. HESA 2018

International students are also concentrated in particular universities, from as few as 15 non-EU students at universities such as Leeds Trinity to over 11,000 at institutions like University College London. Some have suggested that “too many international students” affects the “quality” of the university experience. This implies that all international students are less academically able than home students, ignoring their achievements and capacity to study in second and third languages. A more positive but equally simplistic assumption is that because there are international students in a classroom, beneficial “intercultural” exchanges will happen.

This flawed simplicity of the imagined impact of international students was made clear in a survey by the UK Home Office which asked British home students whether international students had a positive or negative impact on their “university experience”. The survey had to be withdrawn after criticism that it was flawed and “open to abuse”. By positioning international students at odds with home students, the survey deepens a sense of exclusion within UK universities, rather than inclusion. Initiatives like this create the impression that universities are xenophobic and hostile places for international students. They should be egalitarian, diverse and hospitable environments for learning.

 What would success look like?

Universities need to decide for themselves what successful international student recruitment looks like. For some, this will mean large populations in particular courses. Other institutions may be more strategic in considering numbers and distribution, linked to curricular aims, graduate outcomes and teaching approaches. Raw numbers are not a helpful indicator for this decision.

The government’s role should be to support universities by establishing a welcoming environment for international students. Committing to secure funding for higher education, rather than proposing frequent changes would offer the sector the stability to engage in long term financial planning, including – but not exclusively reliant on – international recruitment. The sector and the government need to commit to developing international student recruitment ethically. Currently, international students achieve fewer good degrees than home students do, yet pay significantly higher fees.

International students can come to study in the UK in the full expectation of experiencing a “British” education, only to find themselves on a course with an entirely international cohort, potentially of students from the same country. They can also start the application process, expecting to be welcomed as a guest, and find instead a confusing, expensive visa process and a hostile media and political environment. A commitment to ethical international student recruitment would start from the premise that international education should equally benefit all students. It would mean universities putting international recruitment in service to education. And it would mean the government leading the way on valuing international students as part of a sustainable internationalised higher education sector.

 Sylvie Lomer is a Lecturer in Policy and Practice at the University of Manchester. SRHE member Terri Kim is Reader in Comparative Higher Education, Cass School of Education and Communities, University of East London.

Camille Kandiko


by Leave a comment

How welcoming is Britain?

By Camille Kandiko Howson

Higher education recruitment has become a political issue. Stricter visa regimes for foreign students were implemented in April 2012. International students have fewer opportunities to work in the UK after they finish their degree, and it has become more challenging for partners of students to work and study. The House of Lords issued a report criticising the government’s immigration policy, to decrease immigration overall whilst also increasing international student numbers, and its effect on student recruitment. With the government’s stance on immigration, Britain does not seem a welcoming place for many international students. Taking a tough stance on immigration for the domestic market also sends signals abroad.

There is a complicated web of “push and pull” factors with international student recruitment. Changes in domestic economic markets, the development of high quality institutions at home and opportunities for on-line study can keep formerly mobile students at home. However, large scale scholarship schemes can encourage students to study abroad, such as Brazil’s Scientific Mobility Program, which aims to facilitate sending over 100,000 students abroad. Continue reading →