A record-high increase in Chinese student applicants has overwhelmed several British universities.
International student applicants overwhelmed British universities
There was a huge surge in the number of Chinese students who studied at British universities this year. An increase of more than one-third of the existing number of Chinese students has been recorded this year, a record high in recent enrollment history.
The data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (Ucas) showed that Wales and Northern Ireland are the most favored areas for Chinese students to enroll during the Autumn season.
But education and finance experts warn about the possible difficulties that underlie for relying too much on one country’s contribution to British universities.
A decrease in local application
According to Ucas’ latest data, European Union (EU) student applications have declined by two percent compared to last year, with only 43,030 coming from 43,890 of the previous year. They believe that the issues over Brexit influenced the decrease in local student applicants.
But, when it comes to foreign student applicants, there was an impressive increase of 14.7 percent, which sets the number of international students going to British universities around 73,080. Most of the numbers are contributed by Asian countries like China, Hong Kong, and India.
It was also noted that there was a high surge of student applicants from China for the past year. An eye-popping 33.8 percent increase was recorded by Ucas, which translates into 21,250 Chinese students, an additional 5,370 from last year’s numbers.
In relevance to the increase of student applications from China, the director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), Nick Hillman, feared that relying too much on just one country to pour in the income from U.K. universities is quite very risky.
Chinese students contribute to more than ten percent of the earning of some universities in the U.K.
HEPI wishes to have more diversity in the nationality of students on different campuses. The education ministry is happy with the surge of Chinese applicants, but they still intend to gain more in areas like India to balance out the population of the international community in U.K. universities.
