Record high for Scots securing university places. More universities to charge top fees. Foreign students 'feel less welcome'. Complete University Guide. International students at prestigious UK universities pay the highest fees. I could continue, but I think you are starting to see the picture projected by these universities' PR teams. The emphasis of these messages seems to be less on jobs and more on imparting the knowledge that these are great institutions and you too can become great by association.
It all sounds very inspirational and humanitarian, and well suited to the name 'higher education'. In , a total of , students graduated from Australian universities, and roughly a third of these were overseas students.
It is great to see so many overseas students making their way to Australia, successfully battling through the headwinds of language, culture and financing to study at and graduate from Australia's world class universities. My concern is that we don't treat these students as equals. From the very outset they are not equal: despite their fine words, these universities charge overseas students significantly more to study than Australian nationals. Related: Peter Osborne on Australian post-doctoral students in Asia.
Under Australian consumer law, it is a proprietor's right to set prices and terms and conditions as long as the selection criteria and total price are prominently displayed. Legally speaking, then, it doesn't constitute discrimination to charge overseas students more money. But to me it certainly seems like a moral dilemma, and it illustrates nicely that money and education make strange bed fellows.
How do we justify charging overseas students more? The general consensus seems to be that overseas students pay more because they don't pay Australian taxes, which contribute to universities. Some of the countries that have put themselves firmly in the market for international students in recent years also see fee-paying international students as an important source of revenue for their higher education sector.
The current Education Indicators in Focus brief , based on the most recent data on international student mobility and tuition fees published in Education at a Glance , looks into the reforms differentiating tuition fees between national and international students.
The majority of OECD countries still do not differentiate fees between the two categories, but a growing number of countries do. As the chart above shows, in some countries the differences are significant.
In Australia, Austria, Canada, New Zealand and the United States, foreign students pay double or more the tuition fees charged to national students, on average, while Sweden and Denmark charge no fees to national students but ask international students to pay more or less the full cost of tuition. It is well known that exporting education services has become an important economic activity in some countries, including Australia, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and the United States.
But to what extent do universities in these countries benefit from this source of income? EU researchers demand action on UK association to Horizon. Contact or online? Moving away from binary approaches. New network to champion UK overseas campuses welcomed. Fears raised over embassy staff teaching at universities. Academics call for urgent, drastic reforms post-election. Copyright University World News. At least 10 OECD countries have implemented reforms in this area since However, striking the right balance is not easy.
On the one hand, higher tuition fees contribute to better funded tertiary education systems, especially in times of tight public budgets. On the other hand, higher fees can put a burden on families whose children enrol in tertiary education, especially those with limited financial means.
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