The Guardian newspaper chose to put a story about immigration on the front page today.
Since they have raised the issue, perhaps I might be allowed to ask some questions about the "multi-billion-pound market in foreign students".
Obviously since the introduction of the Rhodes scholarships overseas students have been welcome to study in the United Kingdom, and of course foreign students are expected to pay the full rate for the course.
However there is a world of difference between thirty or so foreign students per year per university and the "multi-billion-pound market" that has grown up in recent years.
British universities are national assets, supported and subsidised by tax-payers over many decades.
1 How have academics been allowed to turn state assets into a "multi-billion-pound" private market, and where is the multi-billion-pound revenue going? (please don't say into inflated salaries for fat cat academics and administrators and also I am not accepting that foreign revenues are "somehow" paying for the education of British students, this would be a mad and unsustainable model).
2 What is the point of having a state university sector that is providing university education for foreigners? - we need to focus on providing education for British students not cramming universities with overseas students so that there is an acute shortage of places each year. If academics want to provide private degrees for overseas students they should do it through private institutions and not use state assets.
3 Is it not the case that the "whole multi-billion-pound market" in foreign students had become a scam, whether the foreign students went to la-di-da Oxbridge or Cricklewood University of the New Age the objective was not to get a degree but to get a fast-track easy-access path to British citizenship and that far from selling high quality education the universities had become dependent on a racket selling British citizenship?
Also, perhaps Nicola Dandridge from Universities UK could explain why the average working-class person in the United Kingdom should care whether overseas students go to the US, Canada or Australia rather than coming here. Is this some rarefied variation of the "punching above our weight" argument? Is she not aware that the average person does not care about all this punching but does care about immigration being brought under democratic control and (if the majority wish this) effectively stopped.
