I teach IELTs in Taiwan and have worked for the British Council as an IELTs examiner. Generally speaking, Taiwanese students that have been educated in Taiwan never score higher than a '6' on the test, which is a 'competent' rating. However, most British universities ask for a '6.5' minimum to get onto a course. So what do candidates do when they don't acheive the required 6.5 minimum? Well, they enter through the backdoor via a pre-sessional course. A university will ask potential students to study English for an assigned period and then allow them onto their chosen course, even though their English is still substandard. The upshot of all this is the dumbing down of courses so that international students can make the grade. This is indeed worrying. It appears that a quality education with enforced standards is fast becoming a thing of the past. Today education has become a commodity on sale to the highest bidders. Now anyone can purchase a degree as long as they have the cash.

Paul Hyder, Taipei, Taiiwan

I agree with Rob's comments, UK students are in debt, by those who ironically got their education paid for by the state through the grants system, Brown et.al. For the prospective well educated postgraduates the funding is simply not there. Had i been born somewhere else in the Commonwealth my chances for securing funding in the UK would increase dramatically. I applied to study in Canada, even though i had studied their before for a year abroad and was declined in favour of their own domestic Canadian candidates. One must question why universities are neglecting their academic meritocratic virtues for a quick cash injection.

Kit , Leeds,

I have recently met a couple from Singapore whose daughter goes to York, neice goes to Oxford and nephew goes to Cambridge - all reading English Literature. I met their daughter who has just graduated and ask her which books she read. She couldn't remember as "it was cold at the time". I asked her if she took an exam. She said "no". She's coming back to York next year to do her Masters! I agree with Jess from Birmingham - its because you're English! Its about time we reacted. Our boys are being groomed to be the World's security force. The last thing our politicians want is for them to be well-educated.

Terry Page, London, U.K

In the engineering world, the chinese graduates in UK universities are actually better than the local one. Their high school / pre university examination is much more difficult than UK's A level. I think the leniency shown by some university are to get the best chinese student. The best of the best will select their UK university. If the British felt the chinese are taking their places, they can close the market. The chinese can still go to Australia or USA. So options are there as this is a free market. Isnt it?

chow, leatherhead, uk

People seem to be forgetting that a lot of overseas students recieve scholarships either from the universities or the British coucil. While at the same time a lot of British students(especially from low income backgrounds) face debt.

rob, eastbourne, UK

I have the opposite problem. My daughter went to Boarding school in Sevenoaks for five years before applying to Bristol university. I am British, born and brought up in SE London, but now live overseas. We are both British, with British passports but Bristol insists she is a Foreign Student. They made the decision after they notified her that she was accepted on the course of her choice, far too late for us to consider options. Higher revenure and coincidence...I don't think so. I now find out that there atre many more expatriate British citizens who are treated in this discriminating way by the UK authorities.

John Slack, Jakarta, Indonesia

The only surprising thing is that this is considered to be ´news´ when it has, infact, been happening for years. I graduated from the University of St. Andrews in 2003, a university with a strong (and heavily marketed in the US)International Relations department. To get onto this course as a home student requires top A Level grades. For the high numbers of full fee-paying Americans, however, the entry standards (for their equivalent SATs) are nowhere near as high (evidenced by their often poor performance in modular exams). Is this fair? Of course not.
There is, however, always a flip-side: the money brought in by these Americans is extremely valuable to the university, and has been used to improve facilities in a variety of areas - including the recent expansion of the university library. These improvements benefit all students - both home and international.

James, Brighton,

If Universities are so dependant on foreign income from overseas students, why do they not chop some of the more useless courses they provide (of which there are too many) which eat up valuable resources that could be better attributed to deserving UK students, thereby reducing the dependance on foreign money?

Jeds, Colchester, UK

Judging someone who works in my office with a so-called masters degree I can only assume they make it easier for them to get degrees as well.

Derek Johnson, London, UK

To have more international students is one thing; to solve the financial situation is another. Please don't mix up the two objectives.

cheers!

cw_Chan, Hong Kong, SAR_PRC,

oust? stupid news!!! It is a business mate, they are helping the universities... ! look at those universities in U.S!! so dont be childish!!! plz!!

Lucas K, Herts,

Full privatisation of universities, government grants for UK only students up to a certain level and let the Unis deal with it. Or have a state run / funded system as we had before, fully government funded. Blair's idiotic third way nonsense just creates perversions that help no one.

Neil Murphy, cromer,

I would be perfectly willing to pay full fees for my son to attend Oxford or Cambridge. He is beautifully educated, speaks perfect English, but unfortunately is British. Why is it OK for these universities openly to have a policy of taking in more and more foreign students because they need their money, leaving less room for British ones, without first giving British parents the option of paying the international fee? I also know, having worked in a Russell Group university myself, how much effort goes into extracting the fees from some of these 'lucrative' international students. Far better, I would have thought, to be confident of getting the money from high achieving home students who are most unlikely to scarper off abroad to avoid paying.

Jess, Birmingham, UK

The sixth form college where I teach has a significant number of students from mainland China. Their English varies quite a bit, but two things they have in common: they can think, and they work incredibly hard - which isn't the case with all of our home-grown students! Many of the Chinese students have been used to a schoolwork day of 16 hours, and they can hardly believe how little we ask of them. The language problems cause them to get less good grades than they otherwise would, but they're a gift to the universities where they get places, both finanically and academically.

Gill, Southampton, UK

Overseas student fees have always been one of the biggest businesses for UK uni and even economy, the issue has always been there so why pointing it out now? Just because they don't "look Brits" enough? Selective Journalism... As to the language, well if they are capable of following the course and work hard enough to pass the exams, let them be. Without them, UK universities won't be able to fund themselves. The real pb is that education should be accessible to anyone, poor or rich, from UK or anywhere else and it's not unfortunately. Having privatised education means only those who can afford it get a decent qualification and not those most competent. Stop blaming foreigners for domestic issues and especially these Chinese for "ousting UK pupils" because in the end we need their money to sustain our own educative system! An article on how the government should assist UK pupils to get access to higher education is more appropriate (real issue) not this (side effect)

Alex, London,

i hope people can make their comment with more knowledge of foreign education. those who say that some chinese students that receive their precollege education in china are not academically qualified can have a try in a high school in china themselves. i wonder how many of them can achieve such "unqualified A-".

claire, nanjing, china

Valid points made by several contributors, but all are missing one point: for undergraduate students, all public universities have a contract with the government to take a certain number of Home/EU students (to within plus or minus 5%). Thus, if a university's contracted figure is 1000 home students, it must take between 950 and 1050 home students every year. There is no cap on overseas students, but going out of the "contract range" for a few years in a row would be very problematical for the university. Thus, overseas students have essentially no impact on the recruitment of home students.

artoo, east midlands, uk

Andrew, London, is rather missing a point, however good the foreign students are: the main, core funding for these universities comes from the UK taxpayer... I doubt most of them think the reason for that is to give foreigners the benefit of our education system.

Harvey Crosby, Middlesbrough,

Moose, Manchester -

Where do you think your next salary will be coming from if not from these international students that you winge about?
Spare your prejudices and just get on doing what you are paid to do.

P Stewart, Kent, UK

This is not news to me. Its not only Chinese but also Americans. I cant forget the time i had an interview at Wolfson College- Cambridge 3 years ago. I was asked who was going to pay my fees? Being from an ethnic minority working class background i had to say my local council authority. Little did i know the effect of such a comment as had i said i was self financing might be the decision would have been different. I spoke to the porter lattter and he told me that the college will be ringing out to America to interview students.

After joining a different university and speaking to some foreign students i realise that our places are trade off to foreign students who at times have fewer grades.

Nic, london, uk

To talk of Chinese students 'ousting' British students is to miss the point. A British university gets, on average, around 3 times as much in fees from an overseas student as from a UK or EU one. On the money received for UK students, many departments would be unable to stay open, at least without drastically increased student/staff ratios. It is fair to say that the influx of Chinese students has saved many university departments.

Huw Edwards, loughborough,

this has been the case for years - it's not a new issue that cash determines student intake above academic qualifications. for example, norwegian students have for years been very attractive to uk universities because we are not members of the EU hence pay overseas tuition fees, speak reasonably well english (a bigger problem with east asian students!!) and look like brits. the 'problem' has simply moved geographically east-wards now.
a bigger problem is for other students being in class with chinese students who can't even express the simplest view in english, let alone read academic texts in order to be prepared for class.

L Eid, London,

The fact is that foreign students are big, big, big money. I've taught Chinese students in the UK and I know exactly how it works. They basically will accept anyone who applies. Half the business students I taught last year with the sole purpose of getting their English up to par had absolutely no business attending an English language university at all. There were some bright students, but the vast majority could not put together complete sentences. All the teachers know it's ridiculous as well, along with the mountains of administrative work associated with tending to them. The university was having things translated for them as well, and no effort was being made to make them adjust to our culture. This diversity babble has to end. I thought the idea was for them to live in OUR country and engage in OUR customs and traditions. That means if a Chinese student plagiarises, then he/she gets punished. Not let off the hook because they are foreign! Argggh!

moose, manchester,

Hang on a moment; what sort of foreign students are we supposed to be upset about here? If they are the foreign students who are taking their exams in English, and English is NOT their mother tongue, then I think they are already showing, by that fact alone, how their academic standing may already be equal to or superior to that of a lot of home-grown students. I am at UCL, and am constantly amazed by how GOOD the foreign students are; they work in academic and technical English at a level at least equal to that of many of the 'home' students. Okay, at some universities these students might have been admitted with slightly lower grades. So what? They certainly work once they are in! To those tempted to complain about this issue point, I would ask can they point to even ONE UK student of their acquaintance who would be able to take the equivalent of A-Levels exams in an non-English medium and even pass, let alone achieve good grades? No. Thought not.

andrew, London, UK

It won't be too long before most of the UK's univ students are from China. In 10 years a few hundred thousand will be rich enough and qualifed enough, and want a British education (a good brand overseas).

I think we need some bigger universities

Kev, Shanghai, china

If foreign students are willing to pay for, let's face it, what's becoming the increasingly devalued and easy to achieve status of being a UK graduate, let them.

John, Bedford, UK

Look,, think about this, who is going to make a paycheque for the admission tutor and any other university staff if the university has no money. In the end, Internetional Students are the prime target for UK universities because of its higher fees. That's it. This article is trying to single out the Chinees and some India. But what about the British public schools? Are they doing it for the same thing? Only the rich and famous can send their sons and daughters because of its higher fees.

james, Manchester,

If this is truly an article which validly claims that unis are lowering the entry hurdles for international fees, why spell out chinese as a race scapegoat. it shd be irrelevant. The focus rather shld be on the wrongful manner in which british uni administrators conduct themselves as well as the poor quality of educational polcies the government has formulated, just as with the NHS situation. The system greedily pockets the international money for the greater benefit of the student population and the overseas student body, esp the chinese race, gets slugged with the innuendo that they are unqualified and only got into local unis through briberies, why shd the local system have two bites off the cherry while the government sits quietly behind the cherry tree?

K Juggapah, London/Mauritius, Mauritius

Universities are not owned by the state. They are private concerns.

I now expect a slew of stories telling me that all kinds of UK based businesses charge differential fees. Yawn.

And if the UK government does not pay the universities the money they need via English student fees - what do they expect will happen?

Just compare the endowments and fee income of British universities with US universities. The top three internationally according to the THES are: Harvard (12 billion), Oxford (1 billion) Cambridge (1 Billion).

The UK government could make the Open University free to its students. It is a very good university, better than many of those it pays full fees for. I bet a free Open University would be cheaper that much of the system we have now.

Richard Roe, Canterbury,

Like anything else, this could be true in certain cases (and indeed, I believe there have been similar cases rumoured to occur in some top US higher education establishments) but in general, I doubt the top universities would adopt such preferential admissions policies at the expense of quality applicants. In this day and age and the importance of academic rankings among universities, any admissions policy that lead to a downgrade of academic quality will, in the long run, return to haunt the institution. There is, however, some merit though in considering cases where entry standards for overseas students are reduced for certain subjects that are less critical, but where the applicant is academically superior in the core subject for a particular degree course. There is also merit in considering overseas students for the sake of diversity. I'm certain universities admisisons tutors would appreciate the consequences of such preferential actions if indeed they are implicitly condoned.

Kris Srisathon, Bangkok, Thailand

So what is new? International Students have received lower offers for a while. (Slightly odd that the report contrasts the numbers with percentages for Oxford. Is the 1000 drop made up for by the almost 100% rise in overseas pupils?). In the current climate of funding it is justifiable to increase pupils paying full costs. What is really worrying is that it might result in employers perceiving that there is a two tier degree system. This could actually come back to bite the University sector. If international students are not as employable fewer might cough up for the degrees.

Robert Grundy, London,

I applied to one of the top Uni as Overseas student and received an offer. Despite knowing I would receive my home fee status(paying 3K per year) during the final exam period.

Having missed out on the grade requirements by a very big margin university took me in - most probably to benefit from the overseas fees.

After fully confirming my place and arriving to my accomodation, it was then when I informed the Uni that I wanted to pay standard home fees.

Now I get full gov. support in the form of loans/grants and uni bursaries.

Mic, Somewhere,

The value of A-levels is fictional to begin with. The conversion to European standards is a plain joke - it is so much harder to even pass the bac let alone do well in it, but for political reasons, the conversion is set at a level which favours A-levels. Also, teaching English students makes you realise how hard they would find life outside their routines. Students themselves (from my class)estimate that 75% are at uni to get pissed every day, not to study seriously. A Chinese student coming over here takes a big plunge which I think values almost more than a good A-level from somebody who has never spoken a foreign language, never relied on a foreign GP and never had to cope with racism. The problem is not the foreigners, the problem is the ridiculously low educational standard even good A-levels give you. Secondary school in this country is, frankly, a waste of time. Just speak to anybody who has to teach very, very basic English to English students with multiple A grades at uni

Fred Caprivi, Manchester,