Claims
by the UK education establishment that UK universities attract 'the
brightest and best' international students have been shown to be greatly
exaggerated by a
new study out today which reveals that in fact the vast majority attend
institutions that are not considered to be in the top tier of learning in
Britain.
The
study from think tank Migration Watch UK finds that only one in twenty of
non -EU students who come to the UK go to one of our top ten
universities. The wider Russell group of 24 universities takes one in
eight.
This
means nearly 90% of foreign students go to one of the roughly 100 lesser-known
universities or to a college of some kind.
The report also highlights a
surge in non-EU postgraduate students at universities well down the league
table. For example, Cardiff Metropolitan, number 92 out of 122
according to the 2012 Sunday Times
University League Table, has 3,660 non-EU postgraduates (72% of their
total number of postgraduates), which is more non-EU postgraduates than study
at Oxford.
This surge could well have
been partly due to a scheme that allowed virtually free access to the British
labour market after only one year of study. Since April 2012, graduates
have had to find a graduate level job paying at least £20,000 a year if they
wished to stay on.
The number of non-EU students
has trebled in the last decade and the sector wishes to see them double in
future years. Students already account for 60% of the inflow of migrants
and there are still no exit checks so there is no way of knowing how many have
actually left.
A YouGov poll
commissioned by Migration watch UK and published on 17 September found that 70
% of the public wish to see a limit on the number of foreign students admitted
to Britain.
Commenting, Sir Andrew Green,
Chairman of Migration Watch UK said 'This report lifts the lid on what is
really happening in the university sector. Non-EU students are being
recruited to prop up the finances of less well known universities. It is
time that the strong public interest in immigration control was properly
balanced against the self-serving pleading of the universities lobby in
the UK which is in denial about the potential impact of foreign students on net
migration.
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