Julián Costas-Fernández, Greta Morando and Angus Holford explore how overseas students affect domestic classmates
Claims that international students are crowding out places for domestic students, and that they are able to “buy their way in through secret routes”, have plagued UK universities in recent weeks.
University leaders and the wider academic community have been at pains to explain that these “secret routes” are in fact highly publicised Foundation degrees, open to both British and international students, and only a pathway to entry to a bachelor’s degree.
Nevertheless, the Department for Education has launched an investigation into universities’ use of recruitment agents, and the home secretary has recently asked the Migration Advisory Committee to investigate if international students are “undermining the integrity and quality of the UK higher education system”. The mud seems likely to stick in the court of public opinion.
This will make it politically more difficult to raise home students’ tuition fees, increase direct government funding to universities, or take other steps to reach a funding settlement for universities that will reduce their financial dependence on international students.
Meanwhile, the increasing strength of the pound and adverse policies towards international students, such as limits on family visas for their dependents, seem already to be reducing the number of international students coming to the UK in the near future.
It’s a shame that unfounded and sensationalist claims have led to this row because UK universities’ reliance on cross-subsidies from overseas students’ fees means that reducing the number of international students would also reduce opportunities for British students, particularly if it led to bankruptcy for any UK institutions.
However, even if the overall economic benefits of overseas students are (or should be) undisputed, it is fair to ask whether overseas students affect the learning and job prospects of the home students they study alongside.
Extra demands
There is reason to fear they might. International students with weaker English may slow down lecturers’ progress, or require more support from teaching assistants, taking up time that is then not available to support the home students. International students will also typically lack the standard set of A-Levels or BTECs held by British students and will tend to have specialised later in their school careers.
This may make them better- or worse-prepared for the quantitative elements of university courses, which may make it harder for lecturers to tailor their teaching to the group. This may affect home students’ perceived abilities, either discouraging them or breeding complacency. We’ve found that students from the EU are particularly likely to take up university ‘careers service’ offers, so perhaps they get themselves to the front of the queue for desirable ‘graduate jobs’.
Given the framing of the debate around value-for-money or ‘quality’ of degrees as predominantly measured by graduates’ earnings, the lack of attention given to these potential issues seems strange.
In our recent peer-reviewed study, we set out to find out how studying alongside more foreign students affected British students’ dropout rate, degree class and labour market outcomes.
We did this using anonymised Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) figures on the whole population of home students who enrolled between 2007-08 and 2010-11 on bachelor’s degree courses at English universities. The data follow them all until they drop out or complete their degree, and a sample of them to six months after graduation.
Comparing outcomes
Our research design let us compare the outcomes of British students studying the same subject at the same university but in different cohorts, or the same subject and same cohort but different universities, each alongside different numbers or proportions of international students.
We were careful also to control for each student’s own demographic characteristics and educational backgrounds, typical characteristics of universities and subjects, permanent differences in outcomes between students studying different subjects or at different universities, and the effects of grade inflation or wider economic conditions that vary across universities.
Consistent with earlier evidence, our research showed that increasing international student numbers does increase home student recruitment on the same degree course.
Once a course has started, we found that international students (either in total, or EU or non-EU students separately) has no effect on the degree class of home students, or on their probability of being in work, studying or unemployed six months after graduating, or of finding a job in a ‘professional or managerial’ occupation.
Nor are there any significant detrimental impacts on any of these outcomes when looking separately at students in science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) versus other fields; those starting out in a Russell Group or non-Russell Group institution; men and women and those from different ethnic groups or family backgrounds. This should reassure people that average impacts are not disguising harms done to particular groups of the population.
Switching courses
We did find that studying with more EU students discouraged domestic students already at university from switching into Stem fields and made it more likely that they would switch from a Russell Group to a non-Russell Group university. However, these things happen very rarely, and ultimately these students achieved similar degree classes and later labour market outcomes.
Moreover, we found that studying alongside more international students meant that British students studying at Russell Group universities or who achieved high A-Level results earned higher salaries than they otherwise would have done.
We don’t know what is driving these non-effects. It could be that international students’ fees enable universities to provide resources that benefit international and home students alike. International students also tend to be older than their home-student peers, so may help young British students become more mature during their degree. Studying alongside international students may also force or enable them to develop skills and perspectives valued by graduate employers. Whatever the mechanism, our results show little cause to worry.
Julián Costas-Fernández is Surrey Future Fellow in economics at the University of Surrey. Greta Morando is a research fellow at the UCL Social Research Institute and assistant professor in economics at the University of Bath. Angus Holford is a senior research fellow at the ESRC Research Centre on Micro-Social Change (MiSoC), ISER, University of Essex
Read the full blog here