Overseas students earn 50pc more than UK peers
Wage gap between British and foreign graduates may be explained by their different backgrounds
FOREIGN students who study at university in the UK go on to earn up to 50 per cent more than their British counterparts, a report has found.
Maths graduates from the UK earn on average £33,100 five years after they finish their degree, while those from outside Europe earn £48,600.
Economics graduates earn £37,900 after five years if they are from Britain, but £45,700 if they are from overseas.
In both subjects, students from European Union countries earn more than their British classmates but less than those from outside the EU.
The report, published by the Higher Education Policy Institute, found that of 21 subject categories, foreign students earned more than their British counterparts in all but six.
Nick Hillman, the institute’s director, said students who came from overseas to study in the UK tended to be aspirational, hard-working and ambitious.
“You have to be a pretty extraordinary person to travel half way round the world to get a degree,” he said. “We are talking about people who often have a lot of social capital, they are often applying to selective institutions and choosing to study in a language which is often not their first language.”
The report’s authors said that foreign graduates who land jobs in the UK typically do so in sectors that suffer from acute skills shortages.
Last week, ministers launched their post-brexit international education strategy with an attempt to woo overseas students by extending the length of post-study work visas.
A Home Office White Paper proposed to increase the post-study work visa for international students from four to six months for undergraduates and post graduates. But Alistair Jarvis, chief executive of Universities UK, said more should be done to “send a welcoming message” to international students and that the Government should extend post-study work visas for graduates to two years.
“The UK immigration system should reflect the extent to which we value international students’ contributions,” he said.
The two-year visa was scrapped in 2012 as part of a wider crackdown on immigration. The move came amid concerns that foreign graduates were abusing the system and staying on to do unskilled work.
Migration Watch UK argued against the two-year post-study visa on the basis that foreign graduates should not be allowed to “stay on to stack supermarket shelves”.
They pointed out that there was currently no cap on the number of foreign graduates who can stay in the UK provided they obtained a skilled job with a salary of at least £20,800.
The Government aims to boost income generated by international education by 75 per cent to £35billion per year by 2030.
Under EU laws, universities must charge European students the same level of fees as their British peers, but non-eu students can be charged at a higher rate.