To The Times
“As former vice-chancellor of a Russell Group university, I strongly disagree with a continued and even increased influx of foreign students. You describe our universities as one of “Britain’s most lucrative exports”, but that is not the purpose of our universities, which is to educate our citizens and to pursue research. An element of cosmopolitanism is, of course, essential, but we are taking it too far, to a point at which it impairs the indigenous character of our universities. A recent walk around the London School of Economics reminded me more of an international airport than a seat of learning. Ironically, we are impairing the character that makes British universities so attractive abroad”.
Professor Sir Laurence Martin, London (The Times, re-printed in The Week).
The average cost of sending a child to private school in London is now £16,500 a year, and has risen by more than 20 per cent during the last 5 years, according to analysis by the Good Schools Guide. This outpaces the 2.7 per cent growth in the capital’s average salary and the 6.1 per cent growth in inflation.
Both in secondary and further education the British are getting it wrong. Private school fees are rocketing up because Chinese parents want to give their children a Western education and will pay a fortune for it. My wife and I encountered a man whose job it is to recruit Chinese kids for British private schools. He said the problem was to keep the ratio of Chinese to British children reasonable (partly for linguistic reasons) – there was absolutely no problem finding rich Chinese parents. The temptation for educational institutions must be huge. This phenomenon exists in the US as well. When we visited the MIT campus we thought we were in Shanghai. What does this say about Chinese education, one might ask? But this isn’t the point. I agree with Professor Martin – this, if pursued, is going to ruin the very things that attract foreign students in the first place.
Meanwhile, for every Chinese student accepted, the private sector becomes even more elitist, exclusive and difficult to enter for British and American children, afforded only by super-rich CEOs and financial sector fat cats.
a new study has found that the cost for middle-class parents hoping to send their children to private school is set to near £1 million, as fees are the least affordable in recent memory,
The report says professional families “risk being priced out” of private schooling as it reveals fees have more than trebled since 1990.
The findings follow previous analysis that shows school fees at public schools are at their least affordable for the so-called squeezed middle for at least five decades.
The research took a hypothetical family with two or more children attending private schools and found that the cost for children starting school in 2014 and 2015 would run to £890,000 “if current trends persist”. This represents an increase from £831,000 calculated a year earlier. ( Javier Espinoza, Education Editor, Daily Telegraph, 15 Jul 2015)
Furthermore, private schools risk being distracted from teaching by focusing on building new facilities, which also leads to fees rising.
“In previous generations we would have put up with Portakabins, but you can’t do that when you are catering for people with super-yachts. Schools used to show off their swimming pool, now they show off their theatres, fitness studios and recording suites.”
Well unlike state education, private education is for profit, so you can hardly blame them for trying to attract foreign students. Private education is not a right, so however unreasonable the cost, the government shouldn’t be in the business of subsidising it.
Anyway, 7% of British students are still privately educated, including 18% of 16 and overs. Overall, a lot of people will be privately educated over the course of their life.
There are still a lot of cheaper private schools available, especially outside London. But just like with its universities, London schools attract a lot of foreign cash. That’s good for the economy, provided the money is distributed effectively.
I agree that LSE has too many foreign students, having visited and got an offer from there myself. I think that it contributes to the university’s low student satisfaction; British students feel that they don’t get the typical university experience, as their expectations and desires are largely different from the foreign students. That’s not being xenophobic, I definitely want foreign students to come to the UK- some of them I consider friends of mine. But it can get to a point where British students feel isolated and in a foreign country- an experience you describe of MIT.