Universities are hooked on Chinese money
As the Government braces itself for the release of the net migration figures next Thursday, it’s astonishing to see the vast number of foreign students now being admitted by UK universities. Invariably, this is presented as a great British success story. Scratch the golden patina, however, and a much grubbier picture is revealed. Universities are the new opium addicts, high on Chinese money and discriminating against our own bright young people to feed their habit.
Far from attracting “global talent”, many low-rent universities are offering low-rent courses to less than stellar students. Can it be the sparkling quality of tuition at the University of Ripoff in the East Midlands that entices young people from China to pay eye-watering fees for the promise of three hours of in-person tuition a week from Professor Bog Standard, but more likely from his doctoral student, Priti Hopeless?
Don’t be ridiculous. Those students are not buying education: the unis are selling the right to work in the UK. Here for three to five years, many are granted a further two years to do any job, with significant numbers never leaving at all.
Russell Group universities are awarding an unconscionable percentage of places to international candidates. Arguably our finest scientific institution, Imperial College, has 60 per cent of students coming from outside the UK. At University College London, more than 15,000 students are from China. And they are not reading criminology or French. They are snaffling up the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (Stem) places that should, by rights, belong to gifted British kids like Jamie.
Jamie’s mum, Jilly, wrote to me this week in despair. “My son is a pupil at X [a leading private school]. At GCSE level, he elected to take 12 subjects and achieved 12 grades at level 9 (the top result). At A-level, he is doing computer science, chemistry, physics and biology and is predicted 3 A*s and an A ... Jamie set his sights on Bristol, Imperial, Durham, Bath and Southampton to study computer science. He was rejected, without reason, by four of those universities.
“Jamie now informs me that of the 17 pupils studying computer science at A-level, 14 have offers from Jamie’s preferred choice universities. Why? Well, the three kids that don’t have offers are white and British. The other 14 are ethnic minority and, crucially, are international students willing to pay £29,000 a year in university fees. They are almost all Chinese nationals.”
Jilly is furious with ministers who preach about the need to get more teenagers studying Stem, “and then there are no places for them. Why aren’t we training our brightest and best?”
What is the moral of this story, if moral it can be called? Don’t be white, don’t be privately educated, don’t be British if you want a science or technology place to study at one of your own country’s best universities?
Hooked on squillions of foreign moolah, universities furiously defend their “business model” which some critics point out is nothing more than a giant Ponzi scheme. Vice-chancellors pay themselves drug-cartel salaries while teaching staff are often stuck on modest pay. When did this become acceptable, let alone the norm?
As of 2021-22, a total of 559,825 students were in the UK to pursue their qualifications from countries outside the EU. Almost half a million student visas were issued in 2022 alone. A large proportion went to China. It is not as if, according to one former Oxbridge master, many students from China contribute to college life. They consider themselves to be paying customers, staying in their rooms and unwilling to learn about the native culture.
“The UK is consistently increasing in popularity among international students,” burbles the Study In the UK website. “With its world-recognised universities, culturally diverse environment, and highly skilled academic staff, the UK is truly the epitome of academic success!” Well, the UK is certainly going to be “culturally diverse” after the university sector has brought the world and his wife here. Last year, the number of “dependants” of students soared to 135,788.
Have we lost our minds? I know academics are famously unworldly, but apart from the naivety of becoming dependent on Beijing for anything, there is surely the worry of IP being lost to the Chinese Communist Party. Not long ago, Sir Richard Dearlove, the former head of MI6, said that all students from China could, in the nicest possible way, be regarded as “spies”. Give them a quarter of our Stem places, why don’t you?
As with the increase in net migration, the dismayingly short-termist attitude seems to be: “Pile ‘em high, rake in the cash, and sod the consequences for people who actually pay taxes here.” Universities should primarily exist for the benefit of our own young people, not for training foreigners who owe the UK no loyalty. See how the ivory towers grow grimy from this revolting greed. Put the opium addicts of academe into rehab, and give British kids the opportunities they deserve.