EVIDENCE that some top-ranking universities are willing to accept applicants from China and India who are less well qualified than those from the UK has emerged from a Sunday Times investigation, write Geraldine Hackett and Max Colchester.

The findings suggest that cash-strapped universities are bending the rules to admit international students who, unlike British students, pay the full £27,000 fees for an arts degree.

Admission tutors for different undergraduate courses at Edinburgh, Manchester and Sheffield said they would be prepared to accept an international applicant who had failed to achieve the normal A-level requirements for their course.

The tutors — who thought they were talking to the guardian of a 17-year-old Chinese student studying A-levels at a top private boarding school in England — said international students did not always have to meet the academic rules that applied to other applicants.

One vice-chancellor, who did not want to be identified, said overseas students were displacing home students at some of the top universities which did not physically have the space to expand. “The government has created a perverse incentive that means international students bring in more money than UK students,” he said.

Universities earn far less from UK and European students even with the government grant and fees of £9,000 for a three-year degree.

International students generate more than £2 billion a year in fees for higher education, but universities state publicly that foreign students have to be as good as other potential undergraduates.

While some universities refused any concessions for overseas students, three told the undercover reporter that they might be treated “more leniently”.

At Edinburgh, where the number of overseas undergraduates has more than doubled since 2002, an admissions tutor for a course requiring three A grades said entry was not “as fierce” for overseas applicants.

The tutor told the reporter: “If she’s an overseas applicant that changes it . . . with an AAB prediction she may get an offer.”

The reporter asked: “Is that purely for fee reasons because she’s paying more money?”

Tutor: “Yes.” Reporter: “Do you think that is fair?”

Tutor: “That is not for me to say.”

An admissions tutor at Manchester was asked if the Chinese student would get a place if she undershot by one grade.

Tutor: “As an overseas student they may be more lenient. If she was paying overseas fees, yes then maybe . . . I think they’ll probably be more lenient.”

The pattern was repeated at Sheffield. An admissions tutor said: “If she were counted as an international student I have to say she would be counted differently . . . this is because the university encourages as many international students as possible.

“Our basic requirement is AAB, but at the same time we don’t request that for international students . . . I’m not promising anything, but if she is an international student that is different.”

Academics insisted that universities had to recruit international students because they had no other way of increasing funds for teaching.

Bruce Charlton, a senior lecturer at Newcastle University, said: “Universities are desperately scrabbling for a share of the market. The incentive is to admit anyone who can pay these very large fees. It is the government’s fault. It sets the fees and numbers for students from the UK and Europe.”

Over the past 15 years undergraduate numbers have more than doubled while government funding per student has fallen by 37%.

Manchester said there were occasions when the academic offer made to the groups might differ because home numbers were limited by the government.

However, the other universities insisted that preferential treatment was not given to overseas applicants. Alan Mackay, head of the international office at Edinburgh, said that to the best of his knowledge overseas students were not admitted with lower grades.

Malcolm Grant, chairman of the Russell Group of universities, said: “It would not be sensible to admit students who did not have the qualifications to do well.”

However, a Chinese internet chatroom for teenagers gives a different impression. One message last week read: “It’s easy to get offer [sic] from British universities: high fees, so it’s a big attraction for universities. Generally, you will get offer if you sent application.”

Barry Sheerman, chairman of the Commons education select committee, said it would be wrong if universities were lowering entry requirements for overseas students: “We want a diverse intake in our universities, but the same grades should be required of all students.”

His committee is investigating university financing. “We will look at this issue,” he said.

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