UK universities are bending rules to admit less qualified International Students
Evidence that some high-ranking universities are willing to accept applicants from China and India who are less skilled than those in the United Kingdom has emerged from a Sunday Times investigation, write Geraldine Hackett and Max Colchester.
The results suggest that cash-tied universities bend the rules to admit international students who, unlike the British, to pay all the fees of 27,000 pounds sterling a degree of art.
Admission tutors for various courses in Edinburgh, Manchester and Sheffield said he would be willing to accept a candidate who had failed to achieve the normal A-level requirements for their course.
The tutors - who thought they were talking to the guardian of a 17-year-old Chinese student studying A-levels at a top private school in England - said international students did not always have to meet the academic standards that apply to other applicants .
A vice-chancellor, who refused to be identified, said that students are moved to house students in some of the best universities do not have the physical space to expand. “The government has created a perverse incentive that means international students bring more money than students in the UK,” he said.
Universities earn far less than the United Kingdom and European students, even with the subsidy and fees of £ 9000 for a period of three years of degree.
International students generate more than £ 2 billion a year in fees for higher education, but public universities state that foreign students have to be as good as other students.
While some universities refused concessions to foreign students, three told the reporter that they can be treated more favorably. ”
In Edinburgh, where the number of students abroad has more than doubled since 2002, a professor of admission to a degree course which requires three input states “as fierce for applicants abroad.
The supervisor told the reporter: “If she is a foreigner seeking to change that… AAB with a prediction can offer.”
The reporter asked: “Is it purely to pay, because they’re paying more money?”
Tutor: “Yes. Reporter: “Do you think it is fair?”
Tutor: “That’s not for me to say.”
A professor of admission in Manchester asked if the student would have a place where Chinese undershot by a grade.
Guardian: “As a foreign student may be more lenient. If she was paying rates on the outside, yes, then maybe… I think that is probably more lenient.”
The pattern was repeated in Sheffield. One admissions tutor said: “If she is counted as an international student I have to say that there was another way… This is because the University encourages the greatest possible number of students.
“Our basic requirement is AAB, while not calling for international students… I’m not promising anything, but if an international student is different.”
Scholars have insisted that the universities to recruit international students because they had no way of raising funds for education.
Bruce Charlton, a professor at the University of Newcastle, said: “Universities are desperately scrabbling for market share. The incentive is to admit that nobody can pay these big fees. It is the fault of the government. It sets out the rates and the number of students in the United Kingdom and Europe. ”
Over the past 15 years the numbers of undergraduates have more than doubled, while public funding per student has fallen by 37%.
Manchester said that there are times when the courses to groups may be different, because the house numbers are limited by the government.
However, he insisted that the other universities were not given preferential treatment to applicants abroad. Alan Mackay, head of the international office in Edinburgh, said that the best of his knowledge of foreign students were admitted with lower grades.
Malcolm Grant, chairman of the Russell Group of universities, said: “It would be wise to admit students who lack the capacity to do well.”
However, an Internet chat room for Chinese adolescents gives a different impression. Last week a message read: “You can give [sic] of British universities: high fees, so it is a great attraction for universities. Generally, you will offer if you send the application.”
Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Commons education committee, said it would be wrong if the universities are reducing the entry requirements for foreign students: “We want a diverse intake in our universities, but the same should be required of all students.
His committee is investigating the financing of the university. “We will examine this issue,” he said.
