University lowers entry requirements for overseas students after ‘financial challenges’
A Russell Group university is lowering the entry requirements for international students who pay higher fees than UK applicants.
York University will admit some overseas candidates who achieved the equivalent of BBC grades at A level to its undergraduate courses, academics have been told.
A “typical offer” for undergraduate courses in subjects such as computer science, physics, history and English is AAA, according to the university website.
Academics and postgraduate researchers were told of the decision to lower the entry requirements in an email from the deputy head of York’s computer science department, seen by The Financial Times.
“In response to the current financial challenges, the University has decided to lower its tariff for all departments and programmes for overseas applicants,” the December email said.
Some overseas applicants to postgraduate courses would be accepted with a 2:2, according to the memo.
York denied it had lowered its entry grades for international students. A spokesman for the university said “they remain as advertised”.
“The change in ‘tariff’ refers to a more flexible approach we are adopting to international offer holders who miss their grades,” they said.
The university compared the approach with its policy for domestic students during clearing, where applicants who have not achieved the required grades for their first choice try to find places on a different course or at another institution.
“This enables us to remain competitive in a global market. It also allows us to take context and individual circumstances into account,” the university said.
UK universities fear they could face financial peril if they do not continue to recruit a large number of overseas students because many institutions have targeted international students to boost their income in recent years.
There is no cap on international student fees, whereas tuition fees for British students have been frozen at £9,250 in England since 2017.
York’s latest financial accounts for the 2021-22 academic year show it increased its total tuition fee income by 10 per cent to £253 million after increasing the number of international students from 4,570 to 6,145.
“A positive financial outcome has been achieved for 2021-22, following planned previous investment, focused particularly on international students,” the accounts stated.
In an interview with The Telegraph last month, Prof David Latchman, the outgoing vice-chancellor of Birkbeck College, University of London, claimed that international students are pulling out of university courses because of an “unfavourable atmosphere” created by ministers.
He said universities had seen international students pull out of degrees last year after Rishi Sunak, the Prime Minister, announced in May there would be a crackdown on overseas students bringing family members to the UK as part of a push to bring down legal migration.
He said: “This has occurred across the sector – I attribute this to the generally unfavourable atmosphere created for international students by the various announcements even though the ban on dependents does not actually begin until January [2024].”
He added: “I think there’s a total failure to understand that you can’t have a business in inverted commas where you say your business has two products – over here, you can’t charge more than this, however much the costs increase [for domestic students]. And over here, I’m going to do our best to discourage people from taking up your business where you can charge more [for international students].”
Universities UK has argued that reducing international student numbers “would run directly counter to the Government’s strategy to rebuild the economy – given the huge financial contribution they make to every part of the country”.
