Figures released today by the Higher Education Statistics Agency show that the number of (non-EU) overseas students starting undergraduate degrees at British universities dropped for the second year running in 2005/6. First year enrollments of non-EU students dropped by 6% to 46,000, down from a peak of over 50,000 in 2003/4.
While non-EU students represent only 6% of all new starters at university, they pay much higher fees than home students and a loss of 4,000 students will represent a financial deficit of £40m to the Higher Education sector. Universities such as Imperial are particularly dependent on lucrative overseas student fees to help fund less financially profitable activities.
Imperial, which charges fees of £17,500 a year to overseas engineering students, appears to have bucked the trend. According to the College's figures, the number of overseas undergraduates increased in 2005/6 by 14% from 1,870 to 2,141, making up 27% of the total undergraduate population.
Nonetheless, the data will confirm fears expressed by many university heads that the introduction of overseas student visa fees, coupled with increased competition in the global education market, is threatening the position of UK universities in attracting foreign students. In a bid to counter these problems, last year Imperial announced that it would reimburse visa fees for overseas students when they started their course of study.
Overall, the number of students in UK Higher Education increased by 2% to 2.29m, of which nearly a fifth are enrolled with the Open University. Science and engineering enrollments increased on average by 3%, though this hides considerable variation. The number of Computer Science students continues to decline and has fallen 11% since 2002/3, however student numbers in Physical Sciences increased by 7%. Outside Engineering, Medicine saw the largest increase, of 10%
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