On holiday recently in George Town, on the Malaysian island of Penang, I visited the Khoo Kongsi “clan temple”, a semi-fortified compound that testifies to the difficult history but also the success of Malaysia’s ethnic Chinese population. One room there is lined with brass plaques commemorating the successes of local children at universities – in Singapore, in Australia, at Oxford and Cambridge and in London. Soft power, written on a temple wall.
Debates about tightening the graduate visa, which allows its holders to work in the UK for two years after graduation, tend to focus on the consequences of reducing international student numbers for university finances and the UK economy. Falling foreign student numbers would be deeply damaging for both. London and its universities would be particularly hard hit. There were more than 200,000 foreign students in London in 2022/23, nearly 30 per cent of all those in the UK. University College London and King’s College London alone had 44,000 foreign students between them.
Losing even a small proportion of these, whose fees help bridge the funding gap for domestic students, would deal a further blow to balance sheets that are already buckling, following eight years of frozen tuition fees. There would be a direct hit for the economy too: research has estimated that foreign students in London are worth £10 billion to the UK.
But in the long term, the damage could go deeper. The UK is probably the world’s leading exporter of higher education, relative to the size of its economy. We export around £28 billion of education services, the vast majority of which are at university level. The sector makes up just under 10 per cent of service exports. The United States of America, our main competitor, exports around $50 billion (£37.5 billion), despite having an economy almost ten times larger than the UK’s. Higher education is one export sector in which the UK is genuinely world-beating, and London is the nation’s shopfront and brand leader.
It wasn’t always like this. The capital didn’t even have its own university until 1825. But agitation for more modern and accessible education – “the people would learn and must be taught”, as one pioneer proclaimed – led to the establishment of University College London, King’s and the University of London in short succession. These radical new institutions triggered a period of rapid growth in higher education at home and abroad. By the end of the 19th Century, examinations for “external” University of London degrees were being taken in centres across the world, from Mauritius to Malta.
As Britain decolonised after World War II, newly-independent states established their own universities (some with support from University of London). Demand for external study was expected to fall: University of London closed its external programme in the late seventies. But appetite for London degrees persisted. Today, 150,000 “transnational” students are studying in their home nations for London university courses, with around 40,000 of them on University of London programmes.
The reputation that drives demand for London degrees attaches to London itself, as well as to specific courses and institutions. That’s why so many UK and international universities have established a presence in the capital. And, despite its unaffordability, London is repeatedly identified as the best student city in the world.
While some people who come to the capital to study may settle here, most return home. But soft power persists: if students had a good experience here (or studying remotely for London courses) this will further bolster the city’s and the country’s reputation and influence. Today’s students are tomorrow’s decision-takers, on international trade and investment and in politics. In today’s world of shaky alliances, the 58 world leaders who studied at UK universities are a diplomatic asset, each one a potential ally in tackling global challenges such as climate change and security.
Panicked debates about immigration obscure the huge benefits – financial, cultural and diplomatic – that foreign students bring, and risk creating a “hostile atmosphere” that could drive them away. There are abuses in the system, and universities and regulators should address these. But responding to specific frauds by imposing blanket constraints on a UK success story seems perverse.
This is a moment when many international students will feel nervous about studying in the US, given reports of deportations and increasingly aggressive policing of immigration, and many US students, too, seem to be looking to the UK. This is the time for extending a welcome and building on our strengths, not erecting barriers that could be as self-defeating as Trumpian tariffs.
Richard Brown is undertaking research on the history and future of higher education in London for University of London, to be published later this year, but has written this in a private capacity. Follow Richard on Bluesky.
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