[photopress:MBA_durham_university.JPG,full,alignright]The number of foreign undergraduate students at British universities has gone up by 8% to almost 50,000, boosted by double-digit increases from China.
The rise— the fastest since 2003 — testifies to the continuing international appeal of British higher education.
Four of the world’s top 10 universities are British, according to the latest Times Higher Education Supplement survey, including Imperial College London and University College London, where at least a third of the undergraduates are foreign.
The popularity of British higher education abroad also boosts UK private schools, some of which have high numbers of Chinese and German students in particular — anxious to earn A-Levels that prepare them for entry to the best universities.
Diana Warwick, chief executive of Universities UK, said: ‘UK degrees are recognised around the world as being high-quality and lead to excellent employment opportunities.’
Foreign students from non-EU countries such as China — which tops the list with 5,058 successful applicants for 2007-08 — are desirable because universities can charge them higher fees, which help finance facilities for the student body as a whole.
That is the story, much abbreviated, as it appeared in the Financial Times. But it is talking about the elite universities here. The lesser universities — and there are a lot of them — simply do not provide quality education. Therefore Diana Warwick’s statement may not be quite correct.
Perhaps it should read: ‘Some UK degrees are recognized . . . .’
At companies at thich the writer has worked a degree from some universities meant the application went straight in the scrap bin. It really is a case of doing very, very careful research before making a decision. As the writer went to no university whatesover there is no bias in this.
Source: Financial Times
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