UUK 10 year snapshot: international students offset domestic dip
By Katie Duncan – Dec 17, 2014
The trajectory of the UK’s higher education sector is changing after the introduction of the country’s undergraduate funding regime in 2012. An annual trends report released by Universities UK (UUK) shows that amid a decline of 6.3% in domestic student enrolments in 2012-13 across all UK institutions after a decade of growth, international student numbers continue to increase.
The Patterns and Trends in UK Higher Education also reveals a shift in funding sources over the last 10 years towards education contracts and student tuition, a large part provided by international fees.
In 2012–13, tuition fees from non-EU students had grown to £3.5 billion, 12.1% of the sector’s total income. Overall, the sector returned a surplus of £1.23 billion in 2012–13, 4.2% of turnover.
According to Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive of Universities UK, revenue from international students is only set to rise.
“Increasing the number of international students coming to the UK could bring enormous benefits to economies in all corners of the country,” she told The PIE News. “Income from universities’ international activities is projected to grow considerably in the coming years.”
The report shows that the UK’s international student market share increased from 10.7% in 2000 to 12.6% in 2012 while other key markets lost ground such as the US whose market share declined from 22.8% in 2000 to 16.4% in 2012 and Germany who lost 2.7% in the same period.
Based on data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency, non-EU students increased from 8.6% of total student population in 2003-04 to 12.8% in 2012-13. Additionally, students from the rest of the EU increased from 4.2% to 5.4% across the same period.
Enrolments in the UK are expected to return from 2013 onwards, but the report says universities need to “demonstrate value to prospective students,” while also emphasising the importance of non-EU students to the UK both economically and culturally. Overall, international students contribute more than £7bn to the UK’s economy.
Paul O’Prey, Vice-Chancellor, University of Roehampton introduces the report underlining “international higher education is an increasingly competitive market, and the governments of the UK’s competitor countries are implementing bold strategies and policies, backed by investment, in an attempt to attract more international students.”
However, despite steady growth between 2003–04 and 2011–12, there was a 1% decline in non- EU student numbers. The number of first year students fell over the last two years from 174,225 in 2010–11 to 171,910 in 2012–13, and the number of non-EU students studying STEM subjects also fell by 2% in 2012–13.
Business and administrative studies experienced a boom in international numbers, more than doubling from 50,000 in 2002-03 to over over 101,600 in 2012-13.
Source markets have been predictably dominated by China and India, making up 57% of students studying in the UK between 2002-03 and 2012-13, while the region with the largest percentage growth between 2003–04 and 2012–13 was the Middle East.
Interestingly the Middle East suffered a decrease of 124% between 2011-12 and 2012-13 and Asia itself dropped 63% in the same period, perhaps owing to the closure of the post-study work route in 2012.
Source: http://thepienews.com/news/uuk-10-year-snapshot-shows-international-students-offset-domestic-dip/