The government's clampdown on overseas student visas is another spectacularly short-sighted coalition policy. But visa restrictions should not be the only thing worrying British universities. The range of factors that make up student experience are destined to become ever more important in the global market for international students.
Overseas students have been a welcome source of income for British universities in need of additional income. The average of £20,000 a year they pay in tuition fees has been used to subsidise British and EU students whose £3,290 a year only goes part of the way to covering the costs of their education.
By far the majority of these students come from China and India. But the competitiveness of British universities in international league tables and the global importance of English is not enough to explain the attractions of the UK, which is second only to the United States as a provider of higher education to foreign nationals. These students also come to Britain because of an historical legacy that may be about to expire.
The market in foreign degrees was in large measure the creation of the British government in the late nineteenth century. By making a British university education mandatory for all positions in the Indian Civil Service, it ensured that British degrees carried a prestige that – particularly in India – has lasted into the 21st century.
Then, as now, international students paid fees for their degrees. However, only a lucky handful secured scholarships, with most having to finance their studies themselves. This meant that many of those whom came to Britain from India often lived on the edge of poverty with some having to be repatriated by the India Office because they found themselves in serious financial difficulty. A number committed suicide. Advice regarding money problems and ways of adjusting to English life appeared frequently in Indian students' accounts of their time here. Though they valued their degrees, as Sumita Mukherjee has shown, the experience of many of these students in England took them into the Indian nationalist movement upon their return.
The 2009 protests of international students in Australia provide a contemporary warning. Citing racism, discriminatory policing and lax regulation, 4,000 Indian students marched on the centre of Melbourne, attracting coverage in India that resulted in a 46% drop in the number of applications for student visas.
The satisfaction levels of international students in the UK are so far reported to be high. But as the British Council's Sally Goggin has recently told Channel 4's Despatches programme, intensified overseas student recruitment benefits nobody if in the long term it detracts from the reputation the UK has for quality research and teaching.
British institutions cannot continue to make assumptions about the enduring prestige of their degrees. Thinly taught MA programmes that treat international students as second-class cash cows may soon lose their attraction for students making choices in a global educational marketplace. With the experience of domestic fee-paying students set to grow in importance, universities may need to rethink their approach to foreign students as well.
Dr Tamson Pietsch is Sir Christopher Cox Junior Fellow at New College, Oxford. Tamson also blogs about academics, universities and the history of the knowledge economy at Cap and Gown.