International students do not get unfair advantages - opinion

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A study has found “no concerns” that universities are watering down admission requirements for international students applying for foundation courses.

The move follows accusations that universities have lowered their standards to recruit foreign students, who pay higher tuition fees.

The study indicates that entry requirements are broadly the same for international students and UK students on equivalent courses.

However, the study found that international students were more likely to retake exams than A-level students.

Universities UK, which represents 142 institutions, commissioned the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA) to carry out the assessment in February.

QAA evaluated the programs of 34 universities that volunteered to participate.

She said she had “no concerns that providers were not meeting published entry requirements” and that those for international programmes were similar to equivalent courses for UK students.

The QAA said that in the “vast majority of cases” students on both types of course “achieved an appropriate standard”.

However, he said international students had a wider choice of courses and, on foundation programmes, had “more opportunity” to succeed by resitting their exams than Scottish A-level or higher education students.

His recommendations to universities include:

regularly assess the number of international students continuing their studies, compared to national students
standardization of practices and rules for the evaluation of basic international programs

Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, said the number of students on these programmes “represents a small proportion of the two million undergraduates studying at our universities” but that the review was important to give students “confidence that university admissions processes are fair”.

She said “rapid action” was needed in some areas and that Universities UK would update its code of practice for fair admissions.

The Russell Group said its universities were committed to “fair admissions and high-quality courses”.

Media coverage earlier this year included a Sunday Times report which claimed that international students were using “secret routes” to “buy their way” into Russell Group universities.

In response, the group of 24 prestigious universities said the report referred to foundation year programmes for international students which had been “wrongly confused” with degree programmes – adding that foundation year programmes were also available to UK students.

Universities can get more money from international students because their tuition fees are not capped like those of domestic students.

According to a study on migration by the University of Oxford, the increase in international students in recent years is due to applications for postgraduate degrees, such as masters, rather than the undergraduate courses taken by many 18-year-olds in the UK.