York University lowers grades for overseas student admissions
A RUSSELL Group university is lowering the entry requirements for international students who pay higher fees than UK applicants.
York University will admit some overseas candidates who achieved the equivalent of BBC grades at A-level to its undergraduate courses, academics have been told.
A “typical offer” for undergraduate courses in subjects such as computer science, physics, history and English is AAA according to York’s website.
Academics and postgraduate researchers were told of the decision to lower the entry requirements in an email from the deputy head of York’s computer science department, seen by the Financial Times.
“In response to the current financial challenges, the university has decided to lower its tariff for all departments and programmes for overseas applicants,” the December email said.
Some overseas applicants to postgraduate courses would be accepted with a 2:2, according to the memo.
York denied it had lowered its entry grades for international students. A university spokesman said “they remain as advertised”. They added: “The change in ‘tariff ’ refers to a more flexible approach we are adopting to international offer holders who miss their grades.”
The university compared the approach with its policy for domestic students during clearing, where applicants who have not achieved the required grades for their first choice try to find places on a different course or at another institution.
UK universities fear they could face financial peril if they do not continue to recruit a large number of overseas students because many institutions have targeted international students to boost their income in recent years.
There is no cap on international student fees, whereas tuition fees for British students have been frozen at £9,250 in England since 2017.
York’s latest financial accounts for the 2021-22 academic year show it increased its total tuition fee income by 10 per cent to £253 million after increasing the number of international students from 4,570 to 6,145.
“A positive financial outcome has been achieved for 2021-22, following planned previous investment, focused particularly on international students,” the accounts stated.
Prof Charlie Jeffery, Vice-chancellor of the University of York, claimed that academic grades were “not the only way to recognise potential”.
He told the BBC Radio 4’s PM programme: “We have plenty of data within the University of York … that shows that those students we admit after just missing those grades we have published do just as well in outcomes as students who achieve those grades.
“It shows that we can recognise the potential of students in different ways and it’s not always expressed simply in terms of grade of entry.”
His comments came amid a backlash from the higher education sector about the decision to lower entry requirements for international students.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: “British students like learning alongside people from other countries except if they feel that international students are holding the class back.
“And if international students were to get in from materially lower academic qualifications there’s a higher risk they could hold the class back.”
Prof Alexandra Wilson, a music and cultural history professor at Oxford Brookes, wrote on social media: “It’s just wrong. Sad to see universities that trade off their elite Russell Group status being prepared to lower standards.”
Last month, in an interview with The Daily Telegraph, Prof David Latchman, the outgoing Vice-chancellor of Birkbeck College, University of London, said that international students were pulling out of courses after the Government announced a crackdown on overseas students bringing family members to the UK.
Lord Johnson of Marylebone, a former universities minister, is calling for the Government to lift the freeze on domestic tuition fees.
He said: “Institutions that deliver great teaching and student outcomes, as assessed by the Teaching Excellence Framework, should be allowed to raise domestic tuition fees in line with annual inflation starting with effect from the academic year 2024-25.”