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A big increase in tuition fees may not be enough, education experts have warned, and it underlines the importance of international students in Wales as well as across the UK.
One specialist told The Eye: “This increase in fees for UK students sounds like a lot but may not be enough to fix the finances of our universities, and only emphasises how important it is to keep attracting international students”.
The UK education secretary Bridget Phillipson, declared that fees in England would rise to £9,535 next year after she was warned of a financial crisis facing the sector, and as The BBC has said: ‘There could be “little choice” but for university tuition fees in Wales to go up’.
Perhaps tellingly the Welsh government (WG), which sets fees for universities in Wales where the cap is £9,250, proclaimed that it would ‘consider the implications of changes across the border’ after Universities Wales (UW) warned it was facing “some of the most pressing, urgent challenges in recent history”.
Universities have said that fees and grants no longer cover the costs of teaching UK undergraduates, and their finances are stretched, even after the planned increase in tuition fees. There are strong rumours that one or two may even go to the wall.
Although foreign student numbers have fallen after changes to visa rules, they remain an important money-spinner for educational establishments in Wales, and also have an important knock-on effect for the Welsh economy.
Fees generated by international students for universities (among them Cardiff’s) are crucial (as well as the boost it gives to the property market), and Wales provides more courses per capita which are filled by international students than most other comparable parts of the UK,
In 2022 the prestigious Russell Group of universities (which includes Cardiff University [CU]) said that institutions were making a loss of £1,750 a year teaching each UK student because tuition fees have remained almost static for over 10 years and did not keep pace with inflation, so they had to turn to foreign students.
A recent report has confirmed the importance of this type of student.
Universities say the graduate route is one of the main reasons foreign student numbers have shot upwards.
Home Office (HO) data suggest that those admitted to universities in 2023 showed a 70 per cent increase on 2019, owing to growth in applicants from India, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Most of these new students are taking one-year masters courses in subjects such as business and management.
That has helped keep universities in the black at a time when inflation has eaten into the money they receive from domestic students.
Tuition fees for Britons are now worth less than £7,000 in real terms.
On average, universities are losing £4,000 a year on every UK undergraduate, and experts believed some may end up pulling out of teaching UK students altogether, to focus entirely on international students.
Close to half of workers on graduate visas eventually find an employer who is willing to sponsor a longer stay.
Those educated at Welsh universities often find high-end jobs, and figures simply do not support the contention from some politicians that they just “deliver food on a bike”.
The recent UK budget could have severe implications for universities in Wales, making their reliance on overseas students even more pressing.
The increase in National Insurance (NI) contributions they have to provide could be a major blow, and after calculations by The Eye, we reckon they could add £13,593,750 to Welsh university costs.
International students also have an important impact on the Private Rental Sector (PRS) (which is a particular driver of economic growth in Wales, Cardiff especially), as a lot of properties are let to international students.
One Cardiff landlord said: “Around a quarter of my flats are rented to international students, so they’re very important”.
For him as well as others in Wales this type of immigrant remains vital to educational establishments (as well as the whole economy), only underlining the warning from experts that an increase in tuition fees may not be enough…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s astonishing decades-long award-winning career in journalism (as the rise in the importance of overseas students became apparent) as he was gripped by the rare disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now
Tomorrow, how during that career, for Phil reporting major events has always loomed large, and often number crunching is essential – this is now put centre stage by new information coming to light about the victory by Donald Trump.
