Outside In | Hong Kong’s surprising role in the global flow of international students
- Pandemic upheavals have exposed the reliance of universities in the West, from the UK to Australia, on international students, particularly from China
- Hong Kong’s role as a supplier of international students is also changing, not least as its universities also become good at attracting mainland students
Adam Habib, vice-chancellor of the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, distils the issue: The United Kingdom is exposing itself to “astonishing risk” by being overreliant on China and India for international students.
Quintin McKellar, vice-chancellor of Hertfordshire University, has warned: “We also need to acknowledge the significant, negative impact that reducing the number of international students would have on the UK’s higher education institutions, as well as industry and the economy overall.”
The numbers illustrate the UK’s crisis succinctly. In 2021-22, of the 2.87 million students at UK universities, 23 per cent were international students. Students from China and India accounted for 51 per cent of those who were granted UK study visas – most of those for higher education. If China and India “turned the taps off”, Habib says, “75-80 per cent” of British higher education institutions would “collapse”.
“Beyond pure numbers, perhaps the greatest policy problem is just how reliant tertiary education sectors are on international student fees as a key funding source,” said researchers at the Mitchell Institute for Education and Health Policy at Australia’s Victoria University. “So many countries leverage these fees to resource the bottom line of education institutions.”
That involves not just undergraduate degrees, but also postgraduate and research activity often critical to a university’s reputation.