Sector hits back at Labour’s international fee levy

Rather than providing new opportunities for disadvantaged British students, sector voices have suggested the policy will have the reverse effect – instead making it more difficult for them to take up a place at university.

Speaking from the Labour party conference in Liverpool yesterday, education secretary Bridget Phillipson announced that the government will move ahead with a controversial levy on the income English institutions make on international students’ fees.

She told delegates that the money – which the government is proposing would be passed onto international students in higher fees – would be reinvested back into targeted maintenance grants, theoretically meaning that British students from “less well-off” backgrounds can benefit from extra financial support.

But the plans have drawn ire from the international education sector, with leaders pointing to recent research from the think tank Public First suggesting that the policy will actually lead to a steep drop in international enrolments and – ironically – thousands fewer university places for domestic students.

BUILA chair Andrew Bird took aim at the government’s assumptions that universities will be able to simply pass the levy onto international students through higher tuition fees.

“Recruitment globally is extremely competitive and tuition fees are one deciding factor for internationally mobile students and this levy will have an adverse effect on student numbers moving forward. Implementing the levy onto English universities also drives a gap between the home countries, leading to further inner competition,” he said.

Meanwhile, Public First associate director for higher education, Annie Bell, branded the move as a “political one” that would be popular with voters concerned about immigration, but fail to provide more than “very little extra support to very few UK students whilst causing significant economic damage to the UK”.

“Few would argue that disadvantaged students should not receive more support, but taking from international students to deliver this will have lasting consequences,” she told The PIE News.

In her conference address, Phillipson suggested that the maintenance grants would be reserved for students on priority courses, but it remains unseen which programs will be included.

Tuition fees are one deciding factor for internationally mobile students and this levy will have an adverse effect on student numbers moving forwardAndrew Bird, BUILA

UKCISA chief executive Anne Marie Graham said it wasn’t fair to only introduce maintenance grants for certain programs – or to force international students to essentially pay for them.

“In developing this proposal, government needs to engage with and listen urgently to the sector on how it will impact student experience and financial sustainability,” she said.

Diana Beech, director of the Finsbury Institute at City St George’s, University of London, told The PIE the move was “straight out of the New Labour playbook”.

While it’s welcome news that the money will be staying in the sector and going towards helping disadvantaged students, she suggested that “the foundations for this support are precarious at best” given funding is coming from international students rather than the government.

“There is, after all, no detail how maintenance grants will work if international student numbers suddenly decline, or if the introduction of the levy ends up putting off thousands of students from a UK higher education. Such an outcome would make the university experience poorer for everyone,” said Beech.

Meanwhile, James Pitman, managing director of higher education, UK and Europe at StudyGroup, pointed out that the policy was likely to result in a dip on the UK’s jobs market.

“Maintenance grants for disadvantaged UK students are most welcome, but they would be better funded by government working with the sector to grow our exports, taking advantage of the chaos across the Atlantic, which would create jobs in local communities rather than destroy them,” he said.

Universities UK chief executive Vivienne Stern said that extra funding for students from diverse backgrounds was the “right idea” – but that bringing in the levy would be “executing it in the wrong way”. 

“Universities already contribute a huge amount to government priorities and if, after more than a decade of effectively freezing domestic fees the government wants them to do more, it’s time we had a debate about making a greater contribution from the public purse,” she added.