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Avoid ‘shocks’ by diversifying postgrad intake, says think tank

Image: sylvar [CC BY 2.0], via Flickr

Researcher urges universities to break reliance on small number of countries for postgraduate students

Universities should try to build a more balanced student body to “weather future shocks to the system” rather than relying on international students from a few countries, a researcher has said.

In a 150-page Higher Education Policy Institute report exploring the changing face of postgraduate students from 2008-9 to 2017-18, author and independent researcher Ginevra House says that a “heavy reliance on students from a single country exposes universities to greater risk” as the coronavirus pandemic squeezes the international student market.

Overall, there were 566,555 postgraduate students in 2017-18. The number of first-year postgraduates was 356,996 and 53 per cent of those first-year students on taught masters-level courses were from outside the UK. A total of 38 per cent of non-European Union postgraduate-level students were from China.

Several academics have warned against the UK’s reliance on students from China, and a recent British Council survey showed that 39 per cent of students from China were on the fence about whether to withdraw their plans to study at UK universities in September. China is the UK’s biggest market for international students.

Commenting on the report, House said: “When writing this report, the Covid-19 pandemic had yet to reach its current height, but the risk posed by universities’ increasing reliance on international students was evident.

“The crisis is providing a timely reminder of the importance of a diverse and balanced student body to weather future shocks to the system, supported by government policies that foster international cooperation and mobility of the world’s brightest.”

Despite the warnings over shrinking numbers of international students, House said transnational education provided an opportunity for universities to grow student numbers. Since 2007-8, there has been a 108 per cent jump in the number of transnational students, with 127,825 in 2017-18 compared with 111,920 EU and non-EU students in the UK.

House also explored the recession of 2008, which saw a rise in the number of people taking postgraduate qualifications as jobs became scarce. She suggests that the UK’s economy “is expected to shrink dramatically” amid the coronavirus pandemic but if patterns seen in 2008 are repeated, postgraduates could see higher levels of employment than people with undergraduate-level qualifications.

Elsewhere, House said the profile of postgraduate students over the nine years studied had become younger, with 57 per cent of students aged under 30 in 2017-18 compared with 52 per cent in 2008-9. House said this reflected a drop in the number of part-time students and marked “a general decline in those accessing lifelong learning opportunities”.

Among first-year postgraduate students, there was a 60:40 split between women and men taking qualifications in 2017-18, compared with a 55:45 split in 2008-9. House said male underachievement in schools might be behind the better rate of participation among women.

White men from disadvantaged backgrounds were less likely to continue to postgraduate study than others, with women making up 64 per cent of UK-domiciled postgraduate starters from disadvantaged areas and men making up 36 per cent.

But the masters student loan introduced by the government in 2016-17 “markedly improved participation” among students from disadvantaged backgrounds, with students from non-professional backgrounds making up 49 per cent of masters students in 2017-18 compared with 35 per cent in 2008-9.

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said that although higher education “is in the midst of a horrendous and unprecedented crisis that is pulling the rug from under our institutions”, the report showed “the power of higher education to do good, extending people’s options, delivering the skills employers need and pushing forward the boundaries of knowledge”.