British universities

Picking on foreign students

A case of xenophobic populism that will harm one of Britain’s long-term competitive advantages

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Readers' comments



Protectionism is a knee-jerk reaction to vaning fortune, which only speeds up the downfall.

It is appealing to shut yourself away from competition, but it is opennness, clash of ideas and fierce competition that moves mankind ahead. Stay out and you stay behind.


I think the writer forgot to mention the word "University" to display the acronym LMU. I think the government should focus more on selecting rather than rejecting outright foreign students. Some people really have talent and motivated to provide for the host country and integrate themselves. It's understandable to be worried about the massive immigrant stream, here in France, French people become something of a rarity in big cities' suburbs like in Paris. I think these people who take over our countries by imposing their lifestyle. I am quite surprised the countries do nothing to limit this imposition. So to be clear, the host countries have the right and it is their duty to preserve their way of life. Foreigners with real talent and motivation should be allowed to apply and have their chance of living in Europe, USA, Australia, Canada etc... People who only want to pollute are to be bared.

Laure.Ch in reply to irn-bru

Don't you think that foreigners students are not "taking the countries by imposing their livestyles" but rather spreading their host country's lifestyle by adapting to it and bringing it back to their own countries ?
Student's immigration is not like every other immigration because it's way less problematic, considering that foreigner students really integrate themselves and don't stand aside and gather depending to their nationalities.
(Sorry for my English)


Hostility to immigrants is rising all over Europe, but opinion polls suggest it is worse in Britain than in any other rich country....This also applies to the US and Australia too.

When-ever and where-ever there is an economic crisis, foreigners and citizens of foreign descent are targeted. Indians also disliked foreigners when jobs were scarce in India!

I think future jobs will be Asia (China / India / ASEAN) so unless there is a need for highly technical course, Asians should not look Westwards - accept to buy their assets which will keep declining in value!

Best wishes

Kishore Nair from Mumbai

BrokenSkull in reply to soffina

"I think future jobs will be Asia (China / India / ASEAN)",really!
I think you are being overtly generous by including India to your list. We have a huge service oriented industry, we do not have the discipline instilled in us to be innovative. I always wanted to state this, "The only thing we were ever good at is come up with the concept of zero and we are one". We need at least another 200 years to catch up with the developed countries.


xenophobia will do no good to Britain's economy. Not only can foreign students contribute to the country's coffers, they also create potential gains. More over, the government already curtailed their rights for work after graduation, why on earth do they treat them more cruelly


I'm sympathetic with British concern about immigration, but find the method of countering it completely misplaced. Look at the figures the article cites: only about 40% of immigrants are students. I have suspicion that it is the remaining 60% the government should be really worried about. Foreign students that study in the UK have at least 4 important things in common: 1. speak decent English, 2 have good educational level from their home country 3. do not rely on the British welfare system and 4. pay for their education. I very much doubt that immigrants other than students have these 4 traits. Therefore the government should rather concentrate on the immigrants who neither study nor work and nevertheless live in the UK in relative comfort for years.


This article failed to mention that most Universities actually LIKE foreign students because they can charge them more fees.

Although, now the fees are so high for English students (£9,000 pa) that the difference is only a few thousand pounds pa, and so foreign students are just as valuable as English students, only there is no danger of them joining the university for unlawful reasons (they will also remain indebted to the government and pay interest on those loans for longer).

I wonder if it is a coincidence that this news comes just as the first round of high-paying English students begins to attend University?


Ok, let me get this straight!

Foreign students were kicked out of their university in Britain because they are foreign. They weren't compensated for neither their hard work and studies nor for the money that they paid for all the time they spent in the university (which could be a couple of years by the way).

Where is justice? You keep on talking and talking and annoying others about it, but where is it?

msaja in reply to jimquad

I think that I've read it properly!

"What will happen to LMU’s bona fide foreign students is equally uncertain. The government is helping them find places at other universities, but there is no guarantee they will get them, nor is any system in place to compensate them. They have been cruelly treated."

This needs an explanation, because this news is not new! Some were kicked out my friend!

Alexander A in reply to msaja

Are you sure that some of these students had actually started their courses like you claim? I have not heard such a claim before and if it is true is obviously very bad handling.

msaja in reply to Alexander A

I have heard and am sure.

Please read the article on 'Emigration: On the Road' in the "Britain Section" of this current Economist issue. Particularly, the last 3 sentences of the article (chucked out of LMU).

The whole situation is bad handling.

Bstgrl in reply to Alexander A

I'm Alan Partridge, yes students have started courses, yes some are in their final semesters. Do you think the school was just a big front ? That there weren't actual classrooms just names on paper? As a student who just spent the entire summer writing a dissertation for LMU, I can tell you many students went to class from what I saw, many students did their work. LMU also has many EU and British students it wasnt just an immigration pot hole, education was going on there in fact my course is highly respected throughout all of Europe, it's run through the CWASU ppl, look it up! Ps I'm also American!


A similar situation is also developing in Switzerland. With the treaty of the EU which increases the mobility of EU nationals, Swiss Universities had a dramatic increase of foreign students (especially from Germany). The problem is not the nationality, is the educational level. What is sad about it is that the government, because of the increasing pressure of the Swiss citizens, is decreasing the access from NON-EU students. This is a huge mistake.

Many of the smart students from India and China are not allowed to work in Switzerland (or are restricted) in order to satisfy EU demands. Personally, as nonmember of the EU, EU and NON-EU citizens should be treaty equally. Nowadays markets are focusing more to Asia, and Switzerland (and the EU) cannot just reject people from there. Without such knowledge, is no wonder why some countries in Europe are not competitive. And with a clear shift to the East, I hope Switzerland will start increasing relations with Asian countries.


This is exactly the kind of article that scares the heck out of me when I think about my upcoming UK Tier 4 (General) student visa decision.

Paul Feild

I write as a British citizen a DBA student. I welcome the editorial and suspect the reason this state of affairs happened it the management of the UKBA have effectively played London Metropolitan as a misdirection headline grabber so as to distract the Public Account Report from the media attention and avoid accountability.

The UKBA is unit to manage the borders and rather than take the institutional changes it has stupidly transfered the policing of student entry to the universities.

As any of you who read Laurie Taylor in THES the running joke is that the registry services get the lions share of the budget with new administration blocks constructed.

So the first thing that this episode will lead to is all universities transfering resources to registry services.

It will mean the same for all universities.

Now London Met has deliberately tried to position itself at offering value-for-money courses; now fees will have to go up to create more administration.

For that reason alone the Public Accounts Committee is right the UKBA should take back the responsibility for policing the borders.

Now lets look at the collateral damage. Why should the completely lawful overseas students be punished. I personally know very good doctorate students fearful for their future. Post graduate courses will be at risk if the student numbers are two small due to the lack of overseas students. In my opinion A judicial review would succeed on the arbitaryness of the UKBA decision alone.

It will be very interesting to see the decision making process that lead to the decision and hope LM get a suitable disclosure of all e-mails blackberry traffic etc and whether this decision was made after receiving a draft copy of the public accounts report?

I can't beleive that David Willets was consulted on this but no doubt the home office was. To destroy young peoples chances; to destroy a university trying it's hardest to claw back from previous difficulties; to set off a nasty racist theme(Sun approves) to people coming here to learn; to destroy the sensible balance of academic - v - registry; is what the UKBA has done.

Take students out of the stat's and UKBA should police not force universities to do it for them.

In my opinion Lon Met will win the Judicial Review the best of british (and overseas luck) to them!


Even assuming there were problems at LMU, I am mystified why the government would prevent existing overseas students from completing their studies. Surely they could just prohibit future recruitment.

Instead, they are forcing 2000 existing students, many of whom are surely genuine, to find another course or be deported. This is insane policy, as potential applicants to almost any UK university will now be deterred by the perceived risk of this happening.


Yes, Britain is more hostile to outsiders than the rest of Europe is. And yes, I profoundly think it is unfair for those people who want to study there to be refused, just because they are foreigners, because the government would do anything to stop them.
Perhaps the government should have taken responsibility and think of a foreign student policy instead of exercising xenophobia throughout their studies.
Also, English students are welcomed arm-opened anywhere they would want to study, so why would Britain’s government not give the same treatment as what their own students receive?
In my opinion, it is completely unfair and ridiculous.


Recent government research shows that approximately 33% of all applications to study in Britain are from bogus applicants, who have no command of English who will simply join the growing numbers of illegal immigrants. The main reson this happens is that we will not fund individual student interviews unlike Australia, Canada and the USA. An estimated 60, 000 bogus students disappear every year, an unknown number stay on to take jobs in this country whwn our own graduates are struggling to find work. Until we fund our system properly interview students and ensure they return after their courses no one will have any faith in the system. If run properly we could have larger numbers studying here make money for UK Plc, but common sense is lacking, proper investment would save the country a fortune just nothing seems to work or be thought out caos and incompetence rule.

shaun39 in reply to guest-iosloml

Coming from the UK, I had to take an interview when going to study in the US.

It was a total farce. It required a flight to + stay in Belfast (no capacity in the London embassy... just think, the UK has even less accessible embassy/ consulate capacity than the US). The costs were prohibitive - about half the price of the return flight to Chicago.

There was endless form filling (no, I've never funded terrorism, etc). Then there was over two hours in a waiting room (I got there early, and the appointment was delayed). The interview, when it finally happened, lasted less than 5 minutes. Some bored money-wasting government bureaucrat from Iowa basically said hi, told me that he had studied at the University of Iowa too, and then sent my passport off to be processed (good thing we can fly with just a drivers' license between Scotland-Northern Ireland).

Interviews would contribute absolutely nothing to security. All they would do is push up costs and frustration, and further retard the private sector with bureaucratic bloat.

We really ought to precede on a country-by-country basis. For all developed countries (South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore, Brunei, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, US, UAE, Qatar, Kuwait and Israel), we should try to achieve EU-style free movement of students. Between developed countries, there really is no need to worry about mass-migration or cultural tensions - such people moving to study often add value for both receiving and sending countries.

For a wide range of middle income countries: Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, Iran, Libya, Tunisia, Mexico, Chile, Brazil, Argentina, Thailand, Malaysia, Indonesia and China, there should be a couple of routes to student visas:
- academic, where the student has strong academic results in their home country and wishes to pursue studies in the UK (which may be as little as a language course and cultural exchange - English fluency is worth study in itself, even if the red bricks aren't in on the action)
- institution sponsor, where British universities admit students, agree to monitor attendance/ performance, and put down a cash deposit with migration authorities which is used for arresting and repatriating any student who transgresses (and refunded on completion of studies)
- self/ family sponsorship (e.g. for language study in the UK). Would require a deposit in the order of 6k or so (to cover the cost of arresting and deporting transgressors).

For poorer undeveloped countries (India, Pakistan, Nigeria, etc), given the high rates of non-compliance (and high incentives to non-compliance), we really have to restrict institutional sponsorship to the best universities, or request much larger cash deposits (in the region of 20k) for self-sponsorship to study in the UK.

The objectives should be efficiency, transparency and achieving the best balance between individual freedom & prosperity on the one hand, and social tension on the other. Interviews and yet more bureaucracy would be a terrible step in the wrong direction.


The author correctly points out that Britain is more hostile to outsiders than other European states. The government is simply responding to the public's "concerns" about outsiders, and they will do anything to stop outsiders, especially if you are good such as students or professionals.

The country is quickly turning inwards. This has already made any British workers unsuitable for employment in other countries or global organisations that require you to work effectively in multi-cultural environments such as the UN. Hiring managers dread British applicants overseas.

shaun39 in reply to Rajput.King

I sure hope not. As a British citizen who's spent less than half my life in the UK (the rest schooling, studying & working in the EU/ US), I rather detest nationalism.

For sure, there must be pragmatic restrictions on migration of unskilled people between developing and developed countries.

But there is no need for outright hostility or national stereotyping (which, frankly, is bullshit - almost nobody conforms to the national stereotype).

Rajput.King in reply to shaun39

Your education in the US probably explains your adaptability to work in different countries. However the British graduates that are being churned out do find it difficult to work in multi-cultural environments. This is mostly true of white middle class with a sub-urban background.

The upper class is well exposed to outsiders; and so are the working class. Middle England is where most of the bigotry lies. The middle class has seen their living stagnate since the 1990s. Its easy for these Daily Mail and Telegraph readers to blame it on outsiders, and not the real causes of their decline such as financialisation, globalisation, technology, free movement of capital etc

shaun39 in reply to Rajput.King

I'd say that I switched from being a brainwashed Scottish nationalist (up to about 7) to being an empire-obsessed British nationalist (up until about 9), then increasingly European with time spent as a child in other EU countries. Being in the US certainly gave a new/ broader perspective, but it was travel for school & work within Europe (something that a large part of the British middle class now does) that made the difference.

Agreed that the Daily Mail and Telegraph are sickening. Both papers are filled with fabricated numbers, plenty of outright lies, plenty of quotes out of context, extreme bias, focus on misery and hate, etc. How can such rags have any credibility? Why would anyone pay? Are people not offended by the trash inside, or embarassed to be seen sitting at a desk or table with such a paper on it?

My first inclination is to defend the British middle class. UK universities are diverse places, and there is no shortage of intercultural mixing. British cities are extremely multicultural too (though with too much self-segregation). Yet, by pointing out the existence of tabloid readerships, you probably win the argument.

All that remains to plea: we aren't all as parochial, insular & hostile as our newspapers, televised media and politicians would have us portrayed.

Rajput.King in reply to jimquad

To be precise: Daily Mail - lower middle. Typical office worker such as a clerk.
Telegraph: Middle to upper middlish - University educated, middle management, likely to follow migrationwatch etc..

Anyways thats besides the point. The bottom line is the generally speaking, Britain has increasingly grown hostile to outsiders; and many simply lack the social skills to deal smoothly with foreigners - they will be polite and smiles, yes, but beneath that lies a deep unease.


No one seems to have noticed that £9,000 fees have already reduced 'other EU' student applications by 13%.



The british immigration policies are really hoorrific.

Students from the EU - Welcome

Students from Non EU - Go to hell

Such measures smack of protectionism (which could hurt Britain's own foreign students studying in Asia).


Sir DL in reply to siddharath

I think these are good policies. It's EU and we need to think on our future first. We have no other choice than to compete on innovation, and how are we going to do that when all our academic effort is used to benefit our competition in India or China.

E Limon

First of all, I think the government should've got its act together before with a well-thought foreign student policy and effective law enforcement. Having previously worked at a school of English in London, checking attendance was the first responsibility of the day, making sure all students were in class before and after the break, so the UK Border police will come over to verify the records of those who were not attending, take notes and leave.

I never saw the police enforcing the law or deporting anyone, and I am not sure if that ever happened. However I've heard of cases in which some of my ex-pupils will drop out of class to take up a job and 'disappear', especially within the Indian and other Asian communities. The UK Border police does not seem to be doing its job in the first place (if in doubt just watch the TV programme), so how can they demand more 'patrolling' from the universities?

It's simply ridiculous.


Completely misguided.

This policy action tries to constrain immigration as a whole, by substituting unskilled immigrants from the EU for highly skilled students/graduates. A case of bad labour displacing good.

The politicians are tackling the headline problem of rising immigration. But doing this will not solve high unemployment amongst the low-income Britons.

Far better to limit unskilled immigrants from the EU. One would need to be creative to think of ways to do this.

shaun39 in reply to edwardong

The objective should remain to achieve a completely integrated and open EU labour market. The UK benefits enormously from employment opportunities (skilled & unskilled) across the EU - if I weren't employed in Germany right now, there's a high chance I'd be unemployed in the UK.


We should attempt to extent free movement of labour between all developed countries, and increasingly to middle income countries as they become developed.

You make allusions to the lump sum of labour falicy - which is protectionist bullshit. The only constraints on migration should be from developing countries to developed countries, where specific intervention is needed to prevent concentrated mass migration with its associated cultural tensions and social problems.


"Better still, adopt a more liberal approach, and remember how Britain first became great: through openness to the world, not through xenophobia and isolationism."

Well someone clearly doesn't know their history. We didn't go into the world with openness, we went in with a shot gun and warships. No xenophobia you say? That one should be obvious to anyone with a faint understanding of British history. No isolationism? We controlled large slabs of the world by force and cut off those who we were in competition with. I expected better of the Economist really I did or are you just peddling the continual bull from big business? No doubt the people that pay for adverts running down the side of the screen.

People go to MigrationWatch UK if you want an accurate independent view of immigration in Britain today.

John Hunyadi in reply to guest-iosinaj

You don't know your history! The guns and warships came later - England began its route towards becoming a world power through trade and exploration in the 16th and 17th centuries. And at no point did England (later Britain) have a policy of isolationism.



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