Foreign students bring huge earnings for SRUC

THE importance of foreign students to UK higher education finances has been underlined by figures from SRUC showing that just one of its courses takes in more than £800,000 in fees.

Students from abroad are paying up to £32,300 to study at SRUC, with the most popular and expensive courses in collaboration with Edinburgh University, who share half the cash. The priciest courses are Geoscience MSCs which top out at £32,300 per year, while the second most expensive is for the students coming to study at the vet school being charged £23,000.

On the five MSC programmes run in conjunction with the University of Edinburgh, there are 90 international students. The most popular course, Ecological Economics, has 27 overseas students, with Environmental Protection and Management having 24.

Growing in popularity is a course on food security, withs 24 students. Students on these courses are mostly from China and US, with eight or less fee-paying students from UK or Ireland. Students are attracted by a qualification from Edinburgh University for their CV, which is ranked 29th in the world.

Fee-paying foreign students studying post graduate courses have to stump up £13,500 over three years for an MSC, with under graduates charged £15,000 per two years. Distance learning is cheaper at only £5000 split over two years, whilst courses, such as HNC or HND, cost £6500/year.

At the moment there are four fee paying students on NC Gamekeeping, Certificate in Professional Golf, NC Countryside Management and Veterinary Nursing. There is one US student taking an HNC in Professional Golf and another taking a BSc (Hons) in Horticulture. There is one French student taking a BSc (Hons) Wildlife and Conservation Management and a Chinese student taking BSc (Hons) Agriculture.