Comments

  1. Ben Harvey said:

    This measure seems like a counter-intuitive approach to continue receiving higher tuition fees, but allow the government to shut them out of the opportunities afterwards. Tuition fees are an increasingly prominent income for UK HE institutes, so why bring about a measure that is more likely to stop those students wanting to attend the UK for their education at all? They’re more likely to just go elsewhere.

    Non-EU students already contribute a huge amount to the UK education sector, and if the brightest and best from non-EU countries no longer wish to come here – how can we expect to maintain our high research excellence? The UK will probably also lose more money than it is likely to gain. Why spend the time training people, if the UK won’t benefit from it and they themselves aren’t given the opportunity to give something back to the UK.

    International students are simply being used as scapegoats to pretend that immigration has been reduced. It is the UK that will lose out from their absence.

  2. Olga Novikova said:

    I do not understand, why nobody is talking about this ‘problem’ honestly and all discussions sound like pure rhetoric…. Let’s face it, majority of international PhD students do not pay tuition and they payed through grants, well, at least in natural sciences. Technically it means that UK government pays for PhDs. Another thing, many PhD students do not want to go back to their countries for different reasons: no job opportunities, differences in payments, better options in UK, etc. Personally, I do not know anybody on PhD program from second-world countries who would want to go back to their homeland to do science. It is sad, but it is fact.
    Why would anybody after experiencing first-class scientific research in UK to go back to the underfunded labs and virtually non-existent science?
    Why would any country invest into education of non-citizens and than kick them out?

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  3. Svetlana Shtolts said:

    I am a final year international student and I do not feel that I’m being treated appropriately by this country. In fact, i feel I’m just being used, and I’m sure majority of the international students who pay for themselves and who do not come from a wealthy background would support me. We come here inspired and determined to work hard, we get good results and make ourselves employable. I mean we would be employable if we were not from outside the EU. This only line crosses out everything for us. Yes, we are generously given 4 months to find a job that would pay 20,500 pounds after taxes. Have you heard of even a British or European graduate who gets this kind of money? I havent’. So this whole talk about our opportunities for finding a job, it’s all on paper, people can’t find a job like this in real life.

    Another thing is postgraduate studies. They are extremely limited for international students. If we talk about science the major funders like BBSRC and Wellcome Trust are not very willing for give money to them. We go through so much bureaucracy to come here. I don’t understand why international students are punished like this. And then we come here and see those many people from the EU countries who do unqualified jobs and often have limited English language command, but they are free from those worries.

    Speaking about the new initiative of that missis May, I don’t know what possessed her. So not only do we have to worry about our final year exams. What she offers sounds like a choice for us: should I revise or should I pack my bags? I think this country should give international students a bit more respect. We are qualified, decent people (mostly), we deserve a bit more opportunities than this. We’re not asking for any money or benefits, all we would like is not every single step we make being restricted. I don’t feel this is in compliance with the those traditional western values of equality and freedom. This country is being an outrageous money leech. I’m regretting coming here.