“Most of my Chinese friends stayed here in the UK. Chinese students are very knowledgeable on how to fight a pandemic, our country has enough protective gear, the Chinese Embassy provides us with it. And foreign students can have access to UK hospitals like the locals ”Peng Wu explains. Joined on Twitter, the young man is a master's student in international law in Leeds (north of England) and he wants to be reassuring.
However, according to British university officials, it would be the exception that proves the rule: because of the coronavirus pandemic, a number of foreign students risk giving up their trip to the United Kingdom in September United, to start or end a course which is highly valued in their countries of origin. Universities UK, the lobby of British universities, has launched an SOS to the government of Prime Minister Boris Johnson and expects help as early as the week of May 4.
Closed amphitheatres, online courses… All European faculties are affected by the pandemic, but those in the United Kingdom more than the others. What has so far ensured their financial health and part of their fame has suddenly turned into an Achilles heel: their heavy dependence on the tuition fees of non-European students, in particular the Chinese, billed two to three times more than their British and European comrades (between 20,000 and 30,000 pounds a year, or between 23,000 and 34,000 euros).
In recent years, the most prestigious campuses (Oxford, Cambridge, University College London, King's College London and Imperial College), as well as those of “second rank” nevertheless of very good level, such as Manchester, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Newcastle or Leeds have considerably increased recruitment across borders.
Worry
About 480,000 non-British are studying in the UK, 20% of the total workforce in higher education. Among them, a huge cohort of Chinese: at least 120,000, according to the Agency for Higher Education Statistics. At University College London and Imperial College, foreigners make up almost half of the workforce. With 5,000 Chinese for 40,000 students, the Manchester campus breaks a European record.
Universities UK already figure at £ 790 million the losses for 2019-2020: accommodation and catering costs of students in free fall, disappearance of income linked to conferences … The shortfall for 2020-2021 will reach 6.9 billion pounds if none of the expected foreign students does displacement either 17% of total industry revenues, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. The campus of St Andrews, the oldest in Scotland, announced in mid-April that it was already short of 25 million pounds to balance its books.
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