New barriers to a foreign degree

Tightening System,

Three nations — Australia, Britain and Sweden — have made access to their highly attractive higher education systems more difficult for foreigners. Britain and Australia are adjusting visa and immigration policies, while Sweden will, for the first time in modern history, charge tuition for some foreign students.

The moves have led some educators, students and politicians in those countries to warn that having fewer international students would not only hurt the academic prestige of educational institutions, but also their pocketbooks.

In Britain, a parliamentary committee report published on March 17 warned that any new visa caps “could seriously damage the UK’s higher education industry and international reputation.”

Despite the criticism surrounding the announcements and a decline in the number of international students in Australia, there is no universal agreement on the long-term effects the changes will have on global education.

Britain

The most recent action occurred in Britain, where the Home Secretary, Theresa May, announced on March 22 new rules that will cut student visas by up to 80,000 a year, or almost a quarter of the total granted annually in previous years. The rules, which also include a more stringent English-language requirement, will be rolled out this year and should be fully in place by April 2012.

The new rules are part of an effort in Britain to stop fictitious colleges and students from exploiting student visas to avoid regular immigration procedures. “We are tightening up the system, tackling the abuse and supporting only the most economically beneficial migrants,” Ms May told Parliament when announcing the changes.

According to Universities UK, an association that represents British university administrators, educational institutions benefit not just by attracting top talent, but also by earning a portion of the estimated £5 billion, or $8 billion, that international students spend in Britain during such educational exchanges.

University and College Union, Britain’s largest union for higher education professors and staff, warned in a statement released March 17 of “knee-jerk populist policies that will deny our universities billions of pounds.”

Once the actual rules were announced, some opponents said they were resigned to the changes, while others, like Universities UK, vowed to work with the Home Office to ensure that the 80,000-visa reduction would not affect the ability of British universities to attract high-quality foreign students.

Sweden

Meanwhile, in Sweden, which according to government figures hosts some 42,200 foreign undergraduate and master’s degree students (foreign doctoral students are not counted separately from Swedish students), the government has announced that it will stop subsidising the education of non-European Union foreign students starting this autumn.

Long known for offering a free post-secondary education, Swedish universities will introduce fees for foreign students from outside the Union, with prices for a two-year master’s programme running an average of roughly 229,100 Swedish krona, or $36,325.

“We want to make sure that people study here because of the high-quality education, not because it’s free,” Elin Boberg, press secretary to Jan Bjorklund, the Swedish minister of education, said.

Though the fees are not yet in place, officials say that their announcement has already had an effect. The Swedish government has released figures showing that 13,408 foreign students have been accepted to study for undergraduate or master’s level degrees in the autumn of 2011, just 55 per cent of the number of students admitted for study in the autumn of 2010. Of those accepted to begin study this autumn, 75 per cent would have to pay the new tuition fees.

Dr Andreas Schleicher, education policy advisor to the secretary general of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, said that for years free post-secondary education was part of Sweden’s social contract. Universities were subsidised by the state, but many foreign scholars stayed on, providing the country with talent and a tax base that made the State’s investment worthwhile.

“They could be hurting themselves,” Mr Schleicher said of the decision to impose the new fees. “Sweden might end up paying for this.”

Blerim Shaqirvela came to Lund University in Sweden last autumn to pursue a master’s degree at the School of Economics and Management. Mr Shaqirvela, a 26-year-old Macedonian, now thinks he will have to take a part-time job to help pay for tuition. “Had I known that they would charge tuition, I would have definitely applied somewhere else,” he said.

Australia

Australia is also feeling the immediate effects of government policies to limit the number of foreign students. The country, which hosts nearly a quarter of a million foreign university students, saw a 9.6 per cent decline in first-year undergraduate students between 2009 and 2010, according to government figures.

Recent changes to the immigration code have put a strong emphasis on the ability to speak and write English at a high level, while downgrading certain types of training that prospective immigrants might have — like cooking — in the application process, said Ashraf Alias of the Council of International Students Australia.

Pengfei Li, a second-year civil engineering student at the University of New South Wales in Sydney, said he left his native China when he was 16 so that he could learn English in an Australian high school. He then went on to earn a cooking degree in an Australian technical college before starting his engineering studies. Mr Li, 25, and his parents had hoped that he would eventually become a long-term resident of Australia, but because of shifting rules, he is now looking elsewhere.

“I’m considering Canada, because I think they will take me,” Mr Li said, explaining that he would choose to do his master’s studies there. Despite new hurdles set up by some of the world’s top foreign student destinations, Peggy Blumenthal, senior counselor in New York at the Institute of International Education, a US research organisation, said she believed the effects would be moderate.

“Obviously, there is going to be a dip, but also because of rumour and perception,” Ms Blumenthal said, comparing the new British visa policy with the tightened US standards put into place in the wake of the terrorist attacks of 2001.

Between 2003 and 2005, the number of international students in the United States declined for three consecutive years, according to the Institute of International Education. Since 2006, however, the number of foreign students coming to the United States has grown continuously, and with nearly 700,000 visiting scholars, the United States is the top destination for students who study abroad.  

“There’s going to be a short-term impact” Ms Blumenthal said, but she added that in the case of Britain, students would still pursue an education there.  Dr Schleicher said he did not think the new rules would keep the most qualified international students out of Australia or Britain.

But for Pengfei Li, there remain concerns. He worries most about his parents, who invested a great deal of money in his Australian education. It will bring them “anger and confusion,” he said.  “It means most people have to go back to China,” he said referring to Chinese students at Australian universities.