Harvard's policy of waiving fees for students with family incomes of less than £32,000 will be advertised to UK state schools by recruiters. US universities are currently working to reduce the grip the private education sector has on their applicants.
In an increasingly marketised higher education sector Harvard is becoming a competitor for not only overseas students but also Imperial's pickings of home students. Harvard will look all the more attractive without the high fees it charges, while Imperial is expecting home students to cough up £3,000 a year via the student loans system.
The idea that overseas universities would begin taking home students away has been flagged as a problem with marketising the higher education sector, but one which was widely thought to have little impact. With top schools in the US looking to increase their international state school intake, it may prove to be more of a problem than previously thought.
The Times Higher Education Supplement listed Oxford, Cambridge, Harvard and Imperial as the top four medical schools in the world, with Imperial in fourth place.
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