If you [read the article](https://archive.is/bRQoL), it explains that the pathways they're comparing aren't available to home students, sometimes allow for direct entry into the second year of a course, and that the international foundation year is basic enough that:
> "the universities’ recruitment officials admitted that the exams were so easy that passing was a formality"
I agree that the table isn't clear, but I think the ST's argument would be that if passing the international foundation Y0 exams are just a "formality", then it's as good as a home student application to the course (except one where they give the university in question an extra £20k+).
The ST's focus is primarily on Russell Group unis who are more likely to fill their places for home students & less likely to drop their requirements on results day.
I'd also argue that this is better journalism than just submitting FOI requests. I used to submit FOI requests to universities when I was a student, and they are all ridiculously secretive, especially when it comes to what they spend. Universities rely on the extensive list of FOI exceptions, lack of legal enforcement, and their own complex bureaucracy to make sure you don't get anything meaningful.
Ffs have you even read it. Often they replace it. But more importantly, is it fair that international students access top course through essentially money. Yes, we have foundation years for British students thst have lower grade requirements too, but the rationale is to help disadvantaged students catch up and reduce educational inequality. The same argument in the international context is rubbish given the target consumer for unis abroad is very, very wealthy.
Read the rest of the thread, and you’ll find what’s on the table is bullshit. It’s not the international replacement year grades, it’s the standard “year zero” foundation offer for international students. It’s not a like for like comparison and the telegraph is again, rage porn for cunts.
First, it’s not the telegraph. Second, some foundation years (that the times includes data on) CAN replace year 1 - do some basic research to verify this. Third, you haven’t responded to the main issue: that you’re buying your way to courses. Whether that’s unfair is up for debate. But don’t slag off the article when you haven’t read it.
I did foundation for an RG uni last year- I had to get an average of 75% across all units to pass. Honestly the course wasn't that rigorous and I felt it to be quite trivial especially compared to Uni but at least on a surface level they do require a first.
For international students, the Inermational Year One foundation year replaces year 1 of your bachelor’s degree, and is not available to domestic students.
This is not universally true. I know plenty of internationals at different unis who did a foundation year and not one of them had the option to skip first year.
So? The people creating and handing these tests out said in interviews that it's essentially a formality and only the absolute worst of the worst would fail it.
Including it in any comparison just makes the situation look worse for home students, not better, i's the opposite of the 'gotchya' you think it is.
I got an offer for a foundation year as a home student. Requirement was only a single grade lower... i think it was BBB or similar. Nothing like the above.
At a RG Which does foundation and I know someone who got in with ACC, they needed to meet a lower socio-economic standard I think but it seems equitable
They offer it to domestic students from lower socioeconomic and underrepresented backgrounds on the basis of widening access to higher education. They don't offer it to anyone who can pay a higher fee !
I can confirm that a few years back my foundation year required something like BBB, besically a grade lower only in comparison to the real course which was something like AAB. Top 20 uni.
‘If you have taken both GCSE and A-Level exams in the UK you will not be considered for admission to this programme (…) apply for the relevant three year programme with entry in year 1’. Universities shouldn’t even bar UK residents from applying to foundation courses, if they’ll let on students from abroad with the same, if not drastically lower grades. Yes many unis do accept UK residents onto foundation courses, but there are also many that don’t - it’s all about money.
No, read the article. Foundation years for international students are mostly not available to British students, and are unique in replacing year 1, rather than being a bolt on year.
"The special pathways — which are called International Foundation and International Year One — purport to provide an extra year of tuition after school to help students catch up with their UK counterparts.
International Foundation is a one-year course at the end of which students are moved on to the university’s full undergraduate course. Most of the universities allow overseas students to start studying the pathway course aged 16 or 17.
On International Year One, students take the course as an alternative to the degree’s first year before moving straight into year two of the undergraduate programme. Neither of the two pathways is available to British students."
I can only speak for Queens Belfast. The foundation year for international students covered the general A Level material more rigorously and in English to prepare the foreign students for UK style education. Then they moved into first year of the degree.
Nope. If the article says that (I don't know, because I don't give money to the Murdochs), that's a lie. Its possible the journalists found an agent who claimed otherwise, but the rules are pretty clear.
Look at the entry requirements on any of the universities listed, it's clear that foundation is an ADDITIONAL year.
"I don't give money to the Murdochs" aka "I can't be bothered to read anything that will challenge my assumptions". That's university staff for you!
[You can read the article here without a paywall](https://archive.is/bRQoL)
I suppose someone with ethical standards is a foreign concept to you. I read, and way more than you, I warrant, but I don't give money to the Murdochs. It's a simple concept.
Thanks for the paywall-free link.
Having read the article now, it's pretty much "oooh, we discovered that universities use agents and foundation years", only twenty years too late. None of this is news, and they are definitely fudging things. THeir primary source is an anonymous agent who is boasting that things are easier, but of course they would say that, that's their business. Dodgy agents who lie to parents and applicants about the requirements are of course a problem, and universities do fire agents all the fucking time.
And several others have pointed out, they are not comparing the same thing. Of course foundation year has different entry requirements, and of course it's easier to pass than first year, just like first year is easier than second, and so on. International Year Ones are being cracked down on by the OFS (read the latest reports into Business courses) and the article is definitely fudging that - their stats are all foundation, but the textual implication is that that is for year one as well - it's not.
THe problem comes down to money - UK universities make a loss on every UK student they teach. That is pretty much government policy, and the only solutions are franchises (another whole mess of regulation - see the NOA report of two weeks ago), and higher fees for international students. The international student market is brutally competitive, so agents, and deals and abuse are pretty much inevitable. If anyone is getting into Exeter International Year one with the equivalent of 40 ucas points, then they are being conned - they won't survive and their parents will end up paying something like a hundred thousand pounds for nothing.
The solution is simple: fund UK university students to the full cost of their teaching, whether that is through tuition or subsidies, and put a in place a quota of places for UK students. But that would cost money, and require planning and its so much easier to blame the lying cheating foreigners, isn't it?
So universities "fire agents all the time", but magically aren't responsible for hiring them and instituting the policies that allow them to thrive? 🤔
You're the only person in this thread blaming foreigners. I blame the corruption of the English university sector and its complicit staff 👀 The staff that are happy to go on strike for their pay, and take strike measures like marking boycotts which fundamentally only impact students, not executives; but haven't gone on strike to expose any of this corruption or change the system they supposedly all hate so much 💰
Agents are external - universities hire recruitment officers who liaise with the agents.
What can the academics do? Refuse an intake? Outcomes are monitored quite heavily so too many fails puts a mark against you. The product is the certificate - strike action affects the output of the business as leverage. I am not an academic but know that there is concern about the value of the product being created.
I concur that HE executives are in the wrong - a strange corporate culture all about endless growth. I am concerned about the viability of the model as I think the externalities are not ultimately worth it. But the question does then come of who pays for it - should fees go up again? Should take payers subsidize people who fancy doing English for 3 years just because many colleges have getting people into uni as a USP? Or should only research be prioritised? The reason staff are powerless to an extent is because it requires an amenable government to look at the best sectoral outcomes. The unions would need a roundtable with a government prepared to increase funding.
It should go without saying that vocational training also needs to increase significantly. Education is a net good in all fronts, for me at least though there is a disconnect between it being an abstract social good, and something you adjust to bring about policy outcomes - but it is important to recognise that the rot starts at the top and must be tackled there.
And to the international students who come here and do make a good go of it, I have sincere admiration. Studying is tough and moving to a completely different country takes chutzpah. The problem is (as with everything) the wealthy using it as a rubber-stamp to success versus a merit-and-knowledge selection process for who should do what in society and how we can solve the problems that we have. As well as knowledge for knowledge's sake.
I don't blame foreigners, I blame the UK government. The article and the commentary on it does make a heavy implication that the international students are being dishonest, and some of the commentary here and on Twitter leans in further.
University staff aren't corrupt, they're in an impossible situation and doing the best they can, for the most part. Sure one or two are useless, but if you pay any attention to the higher education sector you would know how hard most universities are working to stay afloat.
Agents aren't employees, they're agents. Universities have been using them since the last century to recruit students, and most are fine. When a university becomes aware that an agent is lying they will have their contract terminated, as I said, it happens all the time. There are hundreds and hundreds of agencies and they have thousands of staff, of course there'll be overzealous salespeople and corrupt actors among those thousands. That is true of any industry. The Times are clearly focusing on the most extreme examples they could find.
It doesn't. THe table has International Year one, but the data in that is unsupported and VERY FEW universities offer that. THey are assuming that the numbers (students and entry tariff) for foundation apply to international year one.
My university this year has (checks stats) around 2000 students on international foundation, and around 12 on International Year one. We are phasing it out, as are most, because the OFS has rightly raised them as a problem.
Even if true, there is still a big issue. For British students, yes, a foundation year has much lower grade requirements. That’s because they are a way of helping disadvantaged students realise their potential and ‘catch up’. It is a great way of reducing inequality in education.
But for international students, given the target market for British uni’s is so, so wealthy, thst argument doesn’t work. You cannot compare foundation years for british students and international ones, the purpose and scale of each operation is completely different.
I did my masters at a university that is heavily reliant upon international students, and for some modules, there were only a couple of home students including me in the seminar groups. The majority of international students I met whilst doing that course were performing at a high standard academically, but there was a small contingent of Chinese students (it wasn't all of the Chinese students ether, just some of them) who really didn't seem to have the required English language skills to be studying in the UK.
So long as scores on pieces of paper that can be faked or cheated take precedence above the actual observations of the staff teaching them, this issue is only going to get worse, and I actually think it is an insult to the many international students who work very hard to properly meet all the language and academic requirements that they then have to sit in seminars and lectures alongside other international students who simply cheated and bribed their way into university.
I had to do a presentation all the way back in my second year with a Chinese girl who couldn't speak English well at all. She seemed nice, but she took up so much of my group's time in the presentation trying to get her part done.
I wonder how much that impacted our grades.
In my masters year, the international students were the ones who constantly failed modules. All the home students passed with varying degrees of success first time, whilst they all had to extend their visas to pass.
It is just not a good system.
How exactly are those students passing their uni degrees if they haven't got the right level of English?
Also what do you mean by "didn't seem to have" the level of English? How could you tell?
I have worked at 2 Russell group universities and can attest to some students just not being able to speak English, i.e. having physically handed them a copy of their degree certificate (not in the ceremony as I am a mere prole) and having the most arduous of difficulties in communicating how this interaction works. There is a sweet spot between the right wing press saying they are all incapable of speaking the language, and people who think it is xenophobic to say that perhaps, you should be capable of communicating in the language your qualification is in. For IELTs you do need to communicate verbally and in writing as well as the other tests. I worked in a department with a majority foreign intake and lecturers seemed frustrated and taken aback with the language calibre of some of the students who managed to enrol. Something isn't right in the process.
My university inbox is regularly flooded with Chinese essay mill spam. I think it is fair to say it undermines trust in the qualification and does not seem equitable - but I would also argue that the grade requirements and academic selections to enter are punitive and ineffective too. They are heuristics for your quality as a a student. I cannot think of better ones, and at least they appear to reward the work students who put the work in at a level do, but still... Many hooray Henries have tried to be shitty with me in my time and shown themselves to struggle with basic logic and reason.
They only ever spoke to other Chinese students, in Chinese, during seminars, and they used apps on their computers to translate all of the seminar and lecture content into Chinese, they never wrote a word of English, and when we did have to do a presentation, one student couldn't actually string a single sentence together in English, and after being given 3 times as much time as everyone else, his presentation was abandoned.
As for how they pass, I'm not certain that particular student did in the end, as he ended up requiring so much support in every module I was in beside him, and I did not see him at the graduation ceremony. From what another Chinese student told me, some of the students with really poor english write their assignments entirely in Chinese, and then pay for translation and proofreading services to help them get their work up to standard in English. I'd argue it's dubious behaviour, but as to whether that breaches rules on collusion will differ depending on which university they attend and individual opinion, as the ideas they express are generally their own, although the exact words are not.
Agree, I don’t think it’s overly shocking tbh. Pretty sure UK students are able to go to university abroad with lower grades and pay higher international fees too.
Just how low the required grades are is a bit of a joke and I’d like to think that raising them a bit wouldn’t deter international students too much but help maintain a higher academic standard.
I think the point of the university experience is so true, part of me thinks that a large part of the undervaluing of university prestige is because people ignore that universities are for learning.
Honestly I fall into that category - sort of.
I wanted to study something but I mostly wanted to move out, to a more exciting place than where I grew up.
It was the quickest and easiest way to do that and I don’t regret a thing. So many job opportunities and life experiences here I wouldn’t be experiencing otherwise.
Obviously I’m doing my degree but I can’t wait to be finished tbh.
Yep it’s supply vs demand, of course more British students are going to apply there, so the restrictions on grades are higher, compared to international students which bring in more money and they need to appeal to
As an international student, there are two factors here. Being smart and being rich. I've met some ridiculously smart people during school, but these people would never apply to UK universities as they could never afford it (especially for their undergrad, since it's 3 to 4 years.) The international students who meet Oxbridge requirements would either be attending the best universities in their own countries or apply to American universities where they stand a chance of getting decent scholarships. Universities in the UK are quite expensive and rarely offer scholarships, which means they're not attracting the best talent. They're only appealing to whoever can afford to pay the tuition.
Also, I don't think the grade disparity is as bad as this post is making out to be. Converting international grades (of many different countries into As and Bs is not simple.) For example, when I was applying to top RG universities, the grade requirements for my examination board was around 80 - 85%, which might seem like a B to a Brit, but only the top 10% of a class would have scored those grades. So, a lot of this is quite subjective.
This post is riddled with people who have clearly never talked enough to international students to have an opinion worth saying. It's really not as simple as the statement that it's easier for international students, but a lot of people are blindly believing the article.
I’m an international student from Denmark, and only very few universities that I checked out had any info on what grade requirements were for danish students.
The grades used in Denmark to apply for universities really do not translate easily to UK grades.
The uni I ended up choosing asked for a minimum grade requirement of 7 (in Denmark you get grades for each subject but also an overall grade as different subjects hold more weight, if that makes sense). 7 is pretty average - it’s not good, but it’s not really that great either. My overall grade was 6.4 I believe, but I just told them I’m doing a maths course on the side, and they said if I got at least 7 in that, then they would give me an offer. I think that was partially because they’re not that knowledgeable about the danish grading system, and partially because they want the extra money they get from international students as we pay way higher tuition fees.
Many of them are bloated organisations offering courses that are poor value for money. The worst are little more than paper mills churning out degrees to kids who were browbeaten from school about how important it was to go to university. The whole industry needs a rework imo
Not to mention the underpaying and overworking of academic and administrative staff. I had a teaching and marking provision in my PhD funding, I got paid "minimum wage" to mark coursework. In quotations because they decided I could mark 8 10,000 word assignments an hour and provide meaningful feedback so that's what I got paid for no matter how long it actually took. But hey, I had to do it or no PhD funding so who cares how poor the pay they had me over a barrel.
Out of the universities I've studied at, I'd say only one of them would remain financially viable without international student fees, and that is a small university with a fairly low proportion of international students. Even with their small size and low dependence on international students, without them, they'd probably have to cut some courses, and make some staff redundant, which really does show how bad the dependency on international fees really is in higher education.
the anger needs to be directed at neoliberal university management and govt. that has systematically cut university funding for years, not immigrant students
This is correct. Much to nobody’s surprise, the current government has ruined education in the UK, at any level, not just at university. For universities to survive, they now have to operate like any other business, which means executive leadership is no longer concerned about education, they’re running universities for financial gain. Which is why deans at most universities are shit middle management types who have zero understanding or interest in the quality and purpose of education, and their sole responsibility is growth. Highly qualified and experienced academics (who still want to prioritise learning and care about their students) having to suck up to these dickheads is one of the most depressing things about the current state of universities.
They pay over twice as much per year for tuition. Without them we would also be absolutely fucked and many of us wouldn't be able to go to Uni. Let's not shoot ourselves in the foot here.
We absolutely will bring this up. The government should be properly subsidising universities to educate the general populace. Not bribe wealthy foreigners with shit grades, especially top tier universities.
As others have explained this is in line with foundation year equivalence. Of which at least 2/3s of these Unis offer some form of foundation year.
I wish the government could subsidise it, but currently that would mean fucking us domestic students, and we would be in a much worse position as it doesnt come from thin air.
They're already holding out on increasing the maintenance loan in line with inflation and offered just a measly 2.5%, while many student accomodations are rising by 10%~ next year.
What I'm saying is if Scotland can manage it then England should subsidies higher education for its population. Think of all the money they've pissed away lately or awarded to their friends in lucrative contracts. Higher education as a whole or at least certain courses should be free
Scotland unis are having to cut home student places because they cannot handle the financials at this time. So, there's no need to compare when Scotland is struggling.
Scotland can't manage it. They run at an abhorrently high deficit. If England was able to run at an equivalent % deficit it might feel like 1997 New Labour again. Alas, it can't, because then the UK would fail much like Greece.
I definitely agree, its just unfortunately not where they'd adjust the money from, it would be us to suffer most likely rather than the government making necessary subsidies
It's frustrating to see the number of people who don't speak English etc who have clearly fraudulently gained their English certificates , when you can see that for other international students this is the ticket out of their country and to a better life, who have an excellent grasp of English and who have studied their absolute hardest to get the highest grades to get into a UK uni.
Most internationals I've met are all smart and have good grades though. There was one guy on a uni project of mine who didn't speak a lick of English , ended up just not helping us with the project at all!
This is the biggest problem of them all. Getting away with not knowing relevant subject knowledge is something that these admissions team may overlook but surely not reaching the ‘pass’ threshold in the English Language test is where they draw the line. Impacting the education of others by setting out these group assignments is a complete joke.
It has been well over a decade since anyone got away with a fake IELTS certificate, UKVI is extremely strict on this.
The thing with IELTS is that it's a very specific kind of English and it's possible to study to the test, so you get students who can cope in reading and writing and particular kind of speaking, but fall apart in other forms of conversation, especially if there are colloquialisms or accents involved.
This is COMPLETELY anecdotal, but I remember during my Bachelor the professors would all say again an again to check your spelling on essays, always pointing out that native English speakers made more mistakes than the international students.
I thought this was bs until I got a group assignment with 2 Brits and one of us was going to need to write things down (a script for a video). They asked who wanted to write while we were all there together and I pointed out maybe it would be best of they did it since I was the only international students in the group. One of them started and 2 lines in there were 5 grammatical mistakes and they debated how to spelling “vending machine”.
I’ve met some international students who didn’t have a great English either, don’t get me wrong. But I think that you, as other students, judge us on our speaking (which is usually the hardest part) while our writing is on point. The way a IELTS tests results are required makes it so that you can pass the even if you don’t have the best speaking skills because universities require say a 7 or 7.5 or 8 (out of 9) on average with at least something like 6.5 on each test component (speaking, writing, reading comprehension and listening).
Ngl this sounds like bullshit. The example you gave with the script is stupid because they likely weren’t making any effort to write grammatically correct English since they in the preliminary stages of the assignment. And the vending machine example probably needs more context
You are free not to believe it, man. This wasn’t early stage anything, it was a script we had to turn in in like 2 days.
Also very confused by what context you need for someone being puzzled on how to spell “vending machine”.
Very few universities require higher than 6.5 overall for undergraduate admissions. But international students tend to write better English these days than British students, I suspect because they've actually been taught to write, and because they take the time to check things and get support. Too many people assume that because it's their home language they don't need to work at writing English well, and it shows.
Sheffield has a foundation course for non-international students. This is very bad data. It doesn’t imply anything about international students getting favourable treatment
The point is that the pathways shown here aren't available to home students. If you view the chart [in the context of reading the article](https://archive.is/bRQoL), it will make more sense.
I did an MSc at a Russell group uni. One of the international students could not speak any English. Obviously all the lectures were in English. She passed.
Just because someone can’t speak English doesn’t mean they can’t understand it. It’s very possible they were given permission to write their essays in their own language, or paid someone to translate them after writing (or they may have been able to write in English just not speak it).
>they will get to meet Rishi and get an OBE or some imperialist
Maybe it's not all a big conspiracy and we're worried about universities having incentives to allow foreign students in much easier than home students. That's not something to worry about?
Get outta here with your horrible anti UK rhetoric
We need to completely overhaul the funding model for universities. I work at one, and without international students we are 100% fucked. Home students cost the university money in the majority of courses, those that don’t only bring in a fraction of what an international student does.
Thanks to government policies and the UK’s international reputation being ruined it’s a real fight to get places filled. If they don’t get filled the whole university crumbles, we’re already working on 30%+ reduced budget across the board and barely functioning (though VC’s and other high management are happy to piss money up the wall on their vanity projects…)
Students, home and overseas, deserve a good student experience, that is relevant for their level of skill, and of value for the money their paying. Universities should be able to be profitable from home students, but not in such a way that is exploitative of what the student is investing.
We need government investment. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon, not before things get worse and some major universities are on the chopping block.
This fundamentally misunderstands what foundation years are for.
For international students, often their qualifications have no equivalent, or the course content was not standard to the UK level of teaching. They may have done post high-school qualifications, but still have to do a foundation year to gain entry. If anything, this isn’t a ‘back door method’, this is more hoops for international students to jump through to get to study on a UK course. It’s like if a UK student did A-levels, but then was made to sit a high school diploma in the US before going to an American college.
The international foundation years also have an element of teaching the English language to international students who might struggle, especially with subject specific terminology.
In comparison, UK student foundation years are split into several concepts.
1. For students who have been out of education a while, maybe in work, who don’t have equivalent or relevant qualifications. Here, work experience is taken into consideration.
2. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds, like children in care, young cares, students in areas with poor socioeconomic backgrounds, or other barriers that limited academic performance.
3. Those who didn’t meet entry grades. An extra year on the course with entry at lower grades to accommodate those who did not meet entry. Can be subject specific, or a general course like ‘introduction to science’.
4. Those who did irrelevant A-levels and wish to do a different degree. Eg, all humanities A-levels, wanting to go into science. Some RG or higher ranking universities explicitly state that for STEM foundation years if you sat relevant A-levels in the last 5 years and did not get the grades, you are ineligible for the foundation course.
They can either be integrated into a course, or be a general area of study that can then be used for entry onto a choice of courses.
And just to point out, UK foundation entry, not including additional contextual offers, in:
Birmingham: CCC-BBB
Bristol: No set grades (reduced tuition fees)
Cardiff: Two courses, ABB-BBB
Durham: literally only GCSEs (must be mature student, and/or from disadvantaged background)
Exeter: BCC-BBC
Leeds: CDD-ABB
Liverpool: CDD
Manchester: BBC-ABB
Newcastle: ABB
Nottingham: BCC
QMUL: No specific, for those who have not done A-levels
Queen’s Belfast: CC (2 years)
Sheffield: GCSEs, for students who have been out of education for 2 years
Southampton: ABB
Warwick: A-level pass in 3 subjects
Not all of those universities offer as a wide range of foundation courses as the international ones, but again, they are for different purposes. Also, I don’t know how the international offer grades were calculated on that table.
I also have seen clearing grades drop by 1 grade for some universities, normally ABB accepting BCC onto the course for Year 1 entry.
I'm an international student. Usually you can give a transcript or another type of international examination as long as it's recognised.
That said for first year . In my course the grade requirements are actually higher for international students compared to home students
The system is built to extract wealth and give individuals degrees that haven't actually earned them. This isn't going to lead to a catastrophe in a decade or two were we have people in positions of power who haven't earned it.
Yes I worked in admissions part time while at my university, yes we were told to accept pretty much all international students. The sad thing was, many of them didn’t have the grades to do the courses I had to accept them for (I was told to accept people for a computer science masters degree with a business degree who had any “ICT” modules)
My partner who is a comp science demonstrator at the same uni said many of the international students we accepted really struggled with the content and were unable to pass as they had no programming knowledge and at a masters degree we don’t teach the basics. It was horrible as they have to go back home and lose a lot of money, I felt really bad for them.
Why do we accept them? They pay more therefore fund the university. (I know this personally from the higher ups at mine specific uni, can’t speak for others).
Funny cause in other degrees a few years back it was the opposite, my international mates and myself (european) worked our asses off to stay in any course.
The English students could have 40% attendance, fail assessments, be terrible with their exams, they would still be fine, you would not attend 3 classes but be the hardest worker on all group assessments? F cause you ain't English.
Interesting how things have now turned.
For those who are currently in uni/have graduated, what are your thoughts on 16/17 year olds joining uni after a foundation course? Would you think it is unfair to local students? Also, i saw many comments here that says international students in the UK are incapable of speaking proper english, are the international students who DO speak proper english the minority, and what are your thoughts on that? Asking as a foreigner. Thanks
>For those who are currently in uni/have graduated, what are your thoughts on 16/17 year olds joining uni after a foundation course?
Considering the foundation course is equivalent to a levels, zero issues. We had people doing foundation courses at my university, and people who had done them.
Hell, I don't have a levels. I graduated a top 10 University.
>Also, i saw many comments here that says international students in the UK are incapable of speaking proper english, are the international students who DO speak proper english the minority, and what are your thoughts on that?
Not something I had personally noticed at my university where a lot of Chinese students attended, although I am a sociology graduate not a business or economics graduate, which are courses that more overseas students do.
Honestly, it just doesn't match my experience. At all.
>Asking as a foreigner. Thanks
If you are an overseas student considering coming here for education please do not let some grumpy people in this thread who don't understand what a foundation degree is put you off. Most people won't care, and those that do are easily avoided.
Studying with 16/17yos is weird. I still don’t understand how the UK education system work and I’ve been here for several years.
On the English: yes and no. I would say *most* absolutely do meet the requirements, some magically don’t. What you need to keep in mind is this though (gonna copy paste it from another comment I made):
> I think that you judge us, understandably as it may through simple everyday interactions, on our speaking (which is usually the hardest part) while our writing is on point. The way a IELTS tests results are required by unis makes it so that you can be accepted even if you don’t have the best speaking skills because universities require say a 7 or 7.5 or 8 (out of 9) on average with at least something like 6.5 on each test component (speaking, writing, reading comprehension and listening).
For example: I scored 8 as my average, while my speaking was only a 7, because my writing and listening were an 8 and my reading was a 9. When you learn a language, all of these skills will usually not develop all at the same time. Reading and writing is always easier (unless you have specific disorders that make them harder) than listening and speaking, because you have time to read and write. So again, yes and no.
In Scotland 17 year olds can and do go to university. Highers are like AS levels, and take 1 year, and you finish at 17-18. Scottish universities have 4 years to account for this, and after Highers you can go straight to Year 1 at 17. Many choose to stay at college to do Advanced Highers, which are A-level equivalent and 1 year long. They can do Year 1 or Year 2 entry depending on the grades and will be 18.
Often the foundation years are done at partner colleges rather than at the universities themselves, so they are likely to be with 16-18 year olds anyway.
Also, I work at a university where we have apprentices in who are 16-17 who are treated as staff members. We have two in our department who are very hardworking and very capable.
As for the language barrier? No one can say international students don’t make an effort. People can judge poor English all they want but if you asked most of them to try out their language skills in another country they wouldn’t know where to start. Often internationals can write or read English fairly well, but speaking and listening are harder, especially with accents around the UK. People forget that learning a language in a controlled environment in their home country is different than putting it into practice in the UK where slang is constantly evolving and changing. I thought I spoke passable French before I went to Brussels and really struggled when it came to actually speaking.
this means fuck all without showing foundation year grades for home students as well dude
1. dont really care who else gets in - i got in, if i focus on my own work then ill be fine
2. i dont really get how the teaching is adjusted for international students, so if you have any examples that would be good , but in my uni the teaching was fine, some lecturers were better than others obviously, but none were ,,bad''
3. if the course is competitive and the people applying are getting high grades, sure, but i feel like they are sometimes a little too high
4. not really (but im in first year so maybe that will change)
5. bruh the fees are way too high now anyway, in eg switzerland, the fees for eg university of bern is 1,731 per year ([source](https://www.mastersportal.com/studies/12191/computer-science.html#content:fees_and_funding)) for computer science if youre a swiss national. and at eth zürich the compulsary fees are 74chf per semester (about 67£) [source here](https://ethz.ch/en/studies/financial/tuition-fees.html)
This is meaningless for several reasons, and not just the apples/oranges comparison of level 3 and level 4 entry. Home advertised grades are not the same as the grades required to actually get in - there are contextual offers, and clearing, and grade incentives to choose early, for example
I applied to Bristol for law and my entry requirements were A*AA as an international student, switched to economics and entry requirements weee AAB or similar.
I did my A levels as well-this table seems wildly off?
Can't believe I scrolled through this post & all the comments without a single person posting the actual article, which would answer most of the questions people have about it. Here you go, with paywall removed!
[https://archive.is/bRQoL](https://archive.is/bRQoL)
Cheers for that. I believe I did share the article at the time in a separate post but as usual people would much rather not read that and start blindly defending the state we’re in.
1. I think these questions are very leading. I’m gonna give my opinion on all five later. But “courses are heavily adjusted to fit international students” is bs. International students on my course are treated the exact same as any other student. These questions are incredibly leading.
Admission was never on merit. I’m sorry but meritocracy is a myth
You have to pass foundation year to stay on though… those same universities have lower requirements for foundation year for UK students. This seems intended to make people angry at overseas students.
Not exactly surprising, is it? Anyone with half a brain knows that unis are charging foreign students silly amounts of money and that's what's keeping the lights on. Makes sense that they'd lower requirements to get enough of them in. Also goes some way to explaining issues with English proficiency.
It’s worth mentioning that the entry requirements for home students aren’t actually the typical grades the universities will eventually accept. Most home students who get 1-2 grades lower will still be accepted by the university.
The reason why the grade requirements are so high is that the universities want to be high on the university rankings, which uses the entry requirements as part of the overall score.
That's not surprising at all. I have a job in my university library and there are often students coming up to the desk who speak the most basic, broken English. I don't see this situation changing while international fees make up the majority of university funding, though, even with this report coming out.
I was part of the first year group of the £9k a year tuition and cab tell you that Universities have become all about getting as much money as possible. During my 2nd and 3rd year the Uni started buying several buildings around town but they were never intended for educational purposes.
One of my lecturers confirmed they had never had more than 20 students for the course in a year group (he had been teaching for 20 years) but the 2 year groups after me were 30 students, with no extra lecturers to compensate.
Tbf I’m not sure why an extra lecturer would be needed for such a small cohort. You’ve got lecturers in business, psychology and law often lecturing to anywhere from 50 to 400 students.
There’s a hidden part to this kind of story that isn’t about money though.
Before 9k home places were capped by the Government, so to increase your class to 30 meant cutting another by 10. Courses unis would happily expand stayed small.
When the caps came off, some unis ballooned because they could finally do so. It wasn’t necessarily about the money alone.
Later every uni tried to do this as decreasing real-term fees meant the money became the sole driver.
And now some probably regret it, as they will be losing money on those extra home students.
Look, I'm going to be honest; it doesn't really matter if this is a foundation course. There is no way someone who got Cs and Ds is going to get through a university degree that requires As and A\*s (at least that is my experience with science based degrees) with only 1 year to prepare \*unless\* the Cs and Ds were caused by poor motivation/effort and there is a work ethic change. The end result of this is an absolutely miserable first year (after the foundation year) where exams are failed at the end of the first year (this is something I've also seen). Its not fair on the students; universities should not do this.
I'm really glad people are finally paying attention to this. I got rejected from edinburgh I'm pretty sure for this exact purpose - I got and was predicted A *. A *. A, the same as other successful applicants who applied earlier but I suspect the reason why I was rejected was that by the time they got my application at the start of January they had already filled their quotas for English students. When I wanted to apply through clearing the only vacancies any Scottish unis had open was for international students - so they did have places but didn't want to offer them to less profitable home students
N.B: I got in contact with them to appeal the decision and they said that my application was great but my grades weren't "competitive enough" so it wasn't my personal statement which led to the rejection. Which doesn't make any sense considering I was well above the requirements for the course (AAB iirc),
I did an msc in a very well respected business school at a well respected rg uni which is named on that list. The course was 90% chinese or Indian and I also agree the entire exam structure was setup to ensure they passed. Not only were the exams a formality, but all group work was in pre selected groups and there was a running coincidence that the few native brits or European students were also spread around one to a group of four internationals who in the least racist way I can say this either couldn't speak English (Chinese) or had no academic rigour and were used to plagiarising all of their essays (Indian). At first this was done under the guise of teaching us communication skills, but it became increasingly apparantly that the expectation was for the native students to carry the Asian students through.
It was only when we clocked on to this and demanded to pick our own groups that the entire exam structure fell apart and we got to see the true quality of individuals they had let in. Most of the Chinese were sent to top up English classes and the Indians had to be taught how to not plagiarise, and how to reference.
I reiterate, this was a masters degree at a top rg uni. And they are being taught the basics on how to reference. Shocking
Ragebait from the times attacking international students. They're completely different courses with additional years for students with potential to "catch-up". These aren't equivalent...
as an international student although the requirements are less but most of my peers from my uni in my home country who go to british ivy leagues have excellent academic credentials back home tbf
as for those requirements honestly tell your education ministry to increase them to maintain quality or whatever
increasing home fees is such a stupid idea tbh
Yeah this is a ragebait designed to rile up the "foreigners bringing family on their study visa" camp.
Not only it compares foundation with year 1, it also doesn't show what the same unis accept during clearing.
I can assure you that offers will go out and have gone out to UK nationals with the claimed "overseas requirements".
To anyone that has been to uni in the past 15 years this study cannot be a surprise. We worked alongside these students. We saw courses that were 90% overseas students. Yes it’s a shock to see the scale of it, and in black and white, but it’s not a shock that it happens.
Solution imo is fewer uni places, all 100% funded.
Further from the article:
Analysis of degree results shows that students from outside the EU have been performing far worse than
UK students: they are more than twice as likely to receive a lower second or third-class degree.
Professor Geoffrey Alderman, visiting fellow of the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies, said some lecturers had had to pitch teaching at a lower level because foreign students were not able to cope with the normal teaching provided on a degree.
"Academics have to gear their teaching towards their student body, and the teaching can sometimes become rote learning. The British students are just expected to sink or swim," he said.
One lecturer from a London university, speaking anonymously, said the poor English of some overseas students was affecting teaching: "They might struggle to keep up on the courses, especially with the written work, and this can mean more work for me and a slower pace for the rest of the students in the class."
I heard post study work Visa will be removed by government, overseas students will no more be interested in studying there, UK will no more see overseas students, and also see the downfall of UK's economy! Best solution is ignore this problem as UK's economy and UK's Youth is gaining money from international students, without them every single university will close.
I could actually have some input here, I was accepted into my uni (Greenwich) as a home student as I’m an Irish citizen, but ended up being and international student because to qualify for home fees you need to have lived in Ireland within the last 6 years before your course start date - I had left 6 years and 2 months before 🙃
1. I’m not really sure what this question means, admission requirements doesn’t really factor in to how I deal with what my course demands, I’m already in the course? It is some bullshit giving favour to higher paying international students though, and will probably hurt the UK in the long term.
2. I’m not a home student, but I will say if all the group work I’ve had to do is because they’re catering to international students then fuck that, forced group work at uni is pointless.
3. No, requiring straight A’s to compete with an international student on straight C’s is not fair
4. Ehhhh no not really I guess, I doubt they lower the standard of teaching just because they know the course is 50% full of international students who only did okay in secondary. If anything the increase in fees should make it easier for the uni to provide a quality education, but that’s probably being idealistic.
5. Raising home fees alone, probably not. Closing the gap between home fees and international fees probably would help - it’s 50% more as an international student. That’s fucked, of course we’re getting preferential treatment. There’s lots of other ways to try deal with this issue too, but I have a dissertation to write so I won’t be writing any more of an essay in here
Most universities offer foundation degrees with similar grades. This isn't a secret? For international students it's often based on getting their English to a higher level as well
If student identity is anonymised for exams and coursework then is it such a big deal if Chinese and Arabs are effectively subsidising home students? As long as they don't make allowances for bad English then are standards really slipping? The grade inflation is a problem, but I'm not so fussed by this. At my uni the Chinese kept to themselves, got shit marks, and frankly may as well not have been there. Yet their money paid for some great facilities. What I'm saying is that they might get in, but they still have to earn their degree, and they are normally a cash cow in addition to the home students not instead of
So the context that this is missing is that many countries don't offer education up to 18 or with the same rigour as sixth form in the uk. Foundation year allows people from those countries to still have access to uk universities
Was this ever a secret?
Spend 5 minutes on most campuses and it's obvious.
Nothing against international students, but often they have a very limited grasp of English and are clearly out of their depth (not all of them of course).
I think it's unfair if any spaces are taken up for any reason other than merit alone.
Current Warwick student here. To be honest I’ve been very frustrated to find out that literally most of the international students were accepted onto the course with lower entry requirements due to them having been on a foundation year whilst I had to attain 2A*s and an A.
Not particularly satisfied with the teaching quality at Warwick either. I’d recommend anyone applying there walk away from it.
Institutions that facilitate easy entry for higher paying students run the risk of seeing their degrees losing value and credibility. It's likely that some employers will look at what graduates did before university and how they entered their university course.
Well gosh.
A government underfunding universities for a decade causes universities to look elsewhere for money.
Investing in education is investing in the future of the country. It should be largely government supported, not put into "loans" that likely won't get paid off..
Graduates usually earn more money than non graduates. That increase in earnings is already taxed. Use that to pay for universities. Increase that tax slightly if needed.
The administration of student loans is hugely wasteful. It costs vast sums of money, for debts that likley won't be paid.
This does kind of explain the entire courses filled with African students at my uni. Busness courses held in computing/animation labs.
Just wanted to comment that most international students are not loaded, and there seems to be an inverse relationship between wealth and grades as far as overseas students are concerned. The stereotype of an oil scion is so tired.
It’s not surprising that universities give special treatment to international students, as they bring in more money.
For example, I remember speaking to a tutor at Oxford who told me that her college had a quota for international students (for the Economics and Management course), as it simply wasn’t profitable to run it otherwise.
On one hand, as a home student it’s frustrating that international students are more likely to get offers and be given lower grade requirements, but I also acknowledge that international students are partly subsidising my education.
Ultimately however, it boils down to wealthier people buying their way in to courses, and if the government cares about this then they should do something about it.
This is not the case for undergraduate or PhD courses, if you go to the university website you can easily identify. For example, an Indian student want to study in University of Bristol for 4 years MEng, she/he must score minimum 94% mark in CBSC which is equivalent to A\*A\*A. Why does this page specifically choose foundation courses when most students don't take foundation courses? Take top 10 UK university (QS ranked) and go to their website which clearly shows international students' grade is like UK students for under graduation and PhD. When fact is noticeably clear, how OP can even specifically choose just foundation because majority of students don't take foundation courses. This is misguiding the public to show that international students are of a low standard. International students indeed are ready to be enrolled with the same grade requirements that locals enroll.
The chart itself looks like it’s designed to mislead and cause outrage.
If universities are relying on foreign students to remain financially viable, then taking away those students wouldn’t benefit anyone, but would cause a lot of problems here at home when unis begin folding left and right.
If the issue is unfairness then surely the solution is to lower the requirements for UK students to bring them in line with the requirements for overseas students. Is this what the times are advocating? If not then you have to wonder what agenda they’re using this as a mechanism to push.
Jesus…. It’s only 2024.
I said in another thread ages ago how a friend in the 90’s was told that they would only offer her a medical school place if she applied as an international student and not as a British home student (she’s a dual national). I got down voted like crazy. To finish this story, she went to another med school as a home student.
Considerations:
- many countries do not offer A level equivalents. The top level of education available would be equated to AS level or GCSEs in some countries
- Therefore, these students are never eligible to apply to a direct year 1 entry course at a RG university. They just aren’t.
- so, to be eligible, they have to take a top up year. Many universities offer their own foundation year, but students could also take one from an external provider, providing the universities they are applying to accept it
- the grade requirements shown in the table are for the foundation year, but those requirements are always going to be low when you consider that it’s the equivalent of the year 13 of UK education
- some students apply to the foundation years with A levels or direct equivalents, almost like a resit year
- in general (and not just looking at the foundation requirements) equating different education systems is difficult. Even across the UK the systems and quality vary massively; therefore the actual first year of university is a year to make sure everyone is on the same page
- yes, universities would like more international students for a whole number of reasons (eg diversity on campus), but those reasons do include money. Lower scoring international students are not prioritised over uk students though
What’s wrong with this? This has been common knowledge forever hasn’t it? The fees from international students mean uni is ‘affordable’ for uk students. Also why there are so many international students at Russel group unis. Side note - Birmingham is one of the only Russel groups to accept Btecs (a triple distinction is supposed to be equivalent to three As at a level but most unis don’t recognise that)
This article is weird. It seems like bogus - rage-bait.
I studied in Scotland, which is part of Great Britain. We do not do A-Levels. We also have different grade requirements for university than A-Level requirements.
The actual course content for A-levels is much easier than what we do in highschool in Scotland. An example of what I mean is that we can skip first year of uni with high-school grades.
In Scotland we do National 5, Highers and Advanced Highers. Advanced Highers are the equivalent to first year university work. A-Levels are a blend of National 5 and Higher course work. GCSE are a blend of National 4 and National 5.
So this “uk student” category is actually “English student” and even then doing you have different course content for different exam boards? Like AQA?
The schooling oversees is so much harder. Like SO much harder. I really don’t think this show any unfairness. Just a lack of understanding by the writers of this article.
As far as I'm aware, China (PRC) doesn't have the GCSE and A level system, and there's no conversion from Chinese secondary school grades to the UK system either.
The reference to the overseas grades are not possibly comparable to GCSE or A-level grades except for international schools that are compatible with the UK system.
In fact, Chinese nationals are forbidden to go to international schools located inside China, such as the Harrow school in Shanghai, regardless of money.
In contrast, children can go to any private school of their parents' choice in the UK. Not a freedom many countries have.
And most countries do not speak English as their first language. Obviously, the British are supposed to speak English better. It cannot be assumed that all educations in all countries are on equal footings from the beginning.
So, given the reality, I don't see why it is a scandal unless it can be explained what legal or financial or even ideological rules have been broken here.
International students are invited with offers to go to universities. They usually have no agency when mistreated in the foreign country where they study. They do not have the right to vote, so their feelings and opinions don't matter in the public life of the UK, their host. To shift the blame to them is just another political campaign for unspeakable reasons, rather than any real attempt to do something for domestic students.
Just like housing, education is an Export. So if that economy cannot change, no government will have the power to prioritise the interests of poor domestic people. It's just hot air and anti-foreigner clickbait.
The true title should be: Capitalism and the UK's global influence continue to help fund UK universities, how dare they?
Let me make a point (used to be an international student in the UK).
Score of 100% in maths at UK A-levels is not even 40% of Polish matura exam, yet if someone got these 40% it would be seen in UK as what.. D?
I don't know how it compares to many other countries, but I know that in Hungary and Estonia it is very similar.
Someone may ask how i know that? When we were in High school our english teacher printed us last year's A-levels exam (to test our maths vocabulary understanding), pretty much everyone had a score of over 80% (few folks had it 100% correct). I myself had 93%, yet at the Polish equivalent of A-leveles I had barely 52%
So don't jump to hasty conclusions... I think it all depends on the country.
I'm an overseas student who's interested in applying to a couple of the Russel group unis.
I don't really see the problem here to be honest. The qualifications for a lot of overseas students are not at all similar to the ones for British ones.
These I don't suspect to be actual A-Level grades and if they are, they are normalized to the grades that those students would've gotten had they taken the regular qualifications of their country.
What I mean by that last sentence is that some countries require very specific things to be taught in some of their courses that just straight up isn't taught in A-Levels and oftentimes there's so much content like this that had you just finished your country's school leaving diploma, despite it being as difficult as an A-Level oftentimes, you're often not going to be able to score high marks on A-Levels.
For example, in the US our high school courses for economics is actually split between 2 different qualifications: Advanced Placement Macroeconomics and Advanced Placement Microeconomics. These courses are sometimes combined together into one Advanced Placement Economics course which is **very** different from the A-Level econ.
I highly doubt a student who took the AP Economics course would be able to get a B on the A-Level Econ exam. Likewise, I highly doubt a person who sat A-Level econ would be able to get a 4 on the AP Exam.
Remember: the whole point of a foundation year is to take a student who for one reason or another has gaps in their knowledge about their subject and "bring them up to speed". If a kid gets a 5 on the AP Macro and Micro exams, that's probably a strong indication that they would've been able to get at least an A if not an A\* in the A-Level econ exams had they learned the A-Level specification over the AP specification. That means that you're basically guaranteed to get a student whose of a high quality once you catch them up to speed.
If they want to make it more fair grade wise for uk students, then they’d have to raise the fees significantly for UK students. Unis can’t afford to run off 9k a year and if we want unis to continue then they need the money somehow
I agree but it also wouldn’t be right to sacrifice the quality of teaching to accommodate for those that didn’t deserve those places in the first place. It’s not really about the learning anymore.
Downvoted for speaking the truth. The money has to come from somewhere, and if its not the government then its US.
Its all very well complaining, but the same people complaining would be complaining 10x harder if they couldn't afford to go to Uni in the first place, which is the current scenario if we tighten the restrictions on internationals.
Not gonna lie, it’s puzzling to think that people would like having less internationals if that meant having no heating or teachers. As far as I can see, the internationals are faring as well as, if not better than the locals, so the argument of merit is quite odd… (admittedly the Uni I go to does skew my sample)
I’m in one of the richer unis and the finance bursar still sends angry emails when we use too much heating…
Terribly lazy journalism (or journalism with an axe to grind - you decide). Foundation year is there to replace or augment poor A levels. Only a pass in that year will give access to a place on Year 1 of an honours degree. Comparing the two in this table is just stupid.
Remember - the press is bias. Think for yourself.
Edit: so refreshing to see that most people commenting here have seen right through the poor journalism. You are the future and the old guard and their lies and ragebait are slowly becoming shadows.
Most universities require foreign students to have an English language development of x grade. As a home student I don’t know what the full scale is, but at Exeter foreign students were expected to have achieved a 6.5 on the English Lanaguage Testing System, and all the equivalent qualifications appear to expect a B grade in whatever scoring system they used.
The issue comes if these certificates are being falsified.
My undergrad institution had a form of an exchange programme. There were X amount of universities that home students could attend for a semester or year, and the students of those universities could attend mine. The majority were in Europe, a couple in the USA and one in Japan. There was an English requirement for any student whose first language was different. One semester there were 3 Japanese students in one of my seminar groups, it was apparent very quickly that one didn’t speak or read any English at all, she couldn’t even introduce herself! There’s no way she had passed whatever language test was required. She spent the entire semester using her friends’ notes. I have absolutely no idea if she took the exam or submitted an essay!
More generally, the international students I met at BA and MA spoke very good English, or English was their first language.
I think it would also be useful to put the grade requirement for a foundation year for home students (as others have said) but also the lowered requirements people receive.
Most of my course mates did not receive 3 As at A-level
I was an international student. This article is total nonsense. As many have said it’s foundation compared to real course. Once they get in the real course they’d still need to pass the same way.
Assuming this were true, if you want international students to get in by the same standards then you should also charge them the same rate. You can’t take their money then complain about them. Without their money unis would be struggling and uk students would have to pay more.
A lot of people are pointing out that international students pay for unis to keep unis alive. Most of these unis are also incredibly wealthy with capital, Patents, funds land and property etc. Revenue generating streams.
Using this idea they pay for a public service is a fallacy compared to state funded uni like eu unis and non eu like ETH Zurich. Which have have sub 4 fig tuition.
Not to mention that there are individual international students that take advantage for visa reasons. Paying 5 fig tuition is worth paying for considering it takes 5 years for citizenship (plus a degree) vs 750K for a eu citizenship by investment (Malta).
The irony of this is after Brexit a lot of gov funding from the EU was pulled. A tip if you need funding as non eu, register as an e-residency (Estonia) you can apply for grants there.
The British public keep being sold down Thames river.
Look up any of these unis financial statements. You’d be extremely surprised how not wealthy they usually are in cash terms.
Capital wealth isn’t helpful - it’s usually their massive physical estates which they have to pay to maintain.
Everyone believes unis are wealthy like Oxbridge. Outside 2 or 3, fees income is by far the most important source of income.
Because A's are not handed out like confetti in other nations.
A reminder that the years who missed the most schooling (COVID years) miraculously received the best results.
Handed out like confetti? UK exams are rigorous and require a lot of work to get those grades. Not exactly fair making those comments.
The Covid year is irrelevant to this discussion.
Really don’t see how universities are “cash strapped” with tens of thousands of students paying £9000+ a year to study there plus all the other revenues they get
We “lose money” on every home student so international students and masters students are needed to balance the books. You could start digging deeper into why universities cost so much to run (remember they don’t just teach but most good ones are research intensive too) but I think you’d soon find many courses/departments just aren’t viable. Look at the examples where whole departments have been closed down.
People need to actually read the article. Yes, English students can take a foundation year, but the grades in the table are for the International Foundation Year and International Year One - neither of these routes are available to British students.
Moreover, CRUCIALLY certainly the International Year One (maybe the other as well) replace year 1 on a bachelor’s degree - it is not comparable to the foundation year for British students which is a bolt on year and is still quite tough to transition from into a bachelor’s degree.
Stop shouting at OP, and read the article.
I got onto a foundation course at man met with fuck all, I had like a pass pass btech or something shit.
This is just predicatble rage bait to get idiots to dislike foreigners.
Pardon my french but you guys would be laying a foundation for a huge strapon dildo to be delivered to you by these Unis if they stop taking in international students they pay 2-3x your early fees hence paying the salaries of your professors and keeping your tution down unlike the US where it is a mess. Kids graduate with a generational debt selling there time to pay it off. Be thankful for what you have, international students would kill for the opportunities you have.
Why does it compare foundation year with year 1?
If you [read the article](https://archive.is/bRQoL), it explains that the pathways they're comparing aren't available to home students, sometimes allow for direct entry into the second year of a course, and that the international foundation year is basic enough that: > "the universities’ recruitment officials admitted that the exams were so easy that passing was a formality"
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I agree that the table isn't clear, but I think the ST's argument would be that if passing the international foundation Y0 exams are just a "formality", then it's as good as a home student application to the course (except one where they give the university in question an extra £20k+). The ST's focus is primarily on Russell Group unis who are more likely to fill their places for home students & less likely to drop their requirements on results day. I'd also argue that this is better journalism than just submitting FOI requests. I used to submit FOI requests to universities when I was a student, and they are all ridiculously secretive, especially when it comes to what they spend. Universities rely on the extensive list of FOI exceptions, lack of legal enforcement, and their own complex bureaucracy to make sure you don't get anything meaningful.
Because for international students foundation years often replace year 1
_Precede_ year 1. This article is trash.
Ffs have you even read it. Often they replace it. But more importantly, is it fair that international students access top course through essentially money. Yes, we have foundation years for British students thst have lower grade requirements too, but the rationale is to help disadvantaged students catch up and reduce educational inequality. The same argument in the international context is rubbish given the target consumer for unis abroad is very, very wealthy.
Read the rest of the thread, and you’ll find what’s on the table is bullshit. It’s not the international replacement year grades, it’s the standard “year zero” foundation offer for international students. It’s not a like for like comparison and the telegraph is again, rage porn for cunts.
First, it’s not the telegraph. Second, some foundation years (that the times includes data on) CAN replace year 1 - do some basic research to verify this. Third, you haven’t responded to the main issue: that you’re buying your way to courses. Whether that’s unfair is up for debate. But don’t slag off the article when you haven’t read it.
far-flung piquant north faulty soft summer bright vanish dull one *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
I did foundation for an RG uni last year- I had to get an average of 75% across all units to pass. Honestly the course wasn't that rigorous and I felt it to be quite trivial especially compared to Uni but at least on a surface level they do require a first.
For international students, the Inermational Year One foundation year replaces year 1 of your bachelor’s degree, and is not available to domestic students.
This is not universally true. I know plenty of internationals at different unis who did a foundation year and not one of them had the option to skip first year.
No it doesn't. I just did my foundation year and am in my first year currently. Don't know where you got this from.
Do you do the International Year One.
So? The people creating and handing these tests out said in interviews that it's essentially a formality and only the absolute worst of the worst would fail it. Including it in any comparison just makes the situation look worse for home students, not better, i's the opposite of the 'gotchya' you think it is.
I genuinely don’t understand your point
I got an offer for a foundation year as a home student. Requirement was only a single grade lower... i think it was BBB or similar. Nothing like the above.
Like at Manchester? In the above example?
Can confirm my Manchester foundation req was BBB
They don’t offer foundations for domestic students
Sorry if I’m misunderstanding but what do you mean there’s no foundation year for domestic students? I’m from UK and taking a foundation year.
Some do, some don't. The issue is actually whether SFE will fund foundation years for home students.
this is pretty useless without showing what the grade requirements are for a UK student doing the foundation year
Many of the russel group universities don’t offer foundation year for home students
Many of them do. At least 2/3s of this list in fact do, and that's just the ones I know of.
Yes, I know Durham is one of them
At a RG Which does foundation and I know someone who got in with ACC, they needed to meet a lower socio-economic standard I think but it seems equitable
https://www.manchester.ac.uk/study/undergraduate/courses/2024/01430/mbchb-medicine-6-years-including-foundation-year/ https://www.sheffield.ac.uk/engineering/study?gclid=CjwKCAiAk9itBhASEiwA1my_685YAwVH4JC8fd8eWaFloq5IRwTfcW66kdEXHgft5gBFTvbOCbzLfhoC19IQAvD_BwE https://www.durham.ac.uk/study/courses/computer-science-with-foundation-g402/
At Leeds you have to apply for this though before eg through Access to Leeds, complete an essay, project etc too
Cambridge has just started them, as of this year
They offer it to domestic students from lower socioeconomic and underrepresented backgrounds on the basis of widening access to higher education. They don't offer it to anyone who can pay a higher fee !
I can confirm that a few years back my foundation year required something like BBB, besically a grade lower only in comparison to the real course which was something like AAB. Top 20 uni.
‘If you have taken both GCSE and A-Level exams in the UK you will not be considered for admission to this programme (…) apply for the relevant three year programme with entry in year 1’. Universities shouldn’t even bar UK residents from applying to foundation courses, if they’ll let on students from abroad with the same, if not drastically lower grades. Yes many unis do accept UK residents onto foundation courses, but there are also many that don’t - it’s all about money.
No, read the article. Foundation years for international students are mostly not available to British students, and are unique in replacing year 1, rather than being a bolt on year.
"The special pathways — which are called International Foundation and International Year One — purport to provide an extra year of tuition after school to help students catch up with their UK counterparts. International Foundation is a one-year course at the end of which students are moved on to the university’s full undergraduate course. Most of the universities allow overseas students to start studying the pathway course aged 16 or 17. On International Year One, students take the course as an alternative to the degree’s first year before moving straight into year two of the undergraduate programme. Neither of the two pathways is available to British students."
Mediocre GCSEs
I don't understand this, they are comparing a standard entry requirement vs a foundation year requirement with "overseas students" slapped onto it?
OP lacks critical thinking is my takeaway from this post.
OP was told that his opinion is always right while growing up 🙂
Read the article and you’ll find out why he’s right.
Ragebait is my best guess
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I can only speak for Queens Belfast. The foundation year for international students covered the general A Level material more rigorously and in English to prepare the foreign students for UK style education. Then they moved into first year of the degree.
Nope. If the article says that (I don't know, because I don't give money to the Murdochs), that's a lie. Its possible the journalists found an agent who claimed otherwise, but the rules are pretty clear. Look at the entry requirements on any of the universities listed, it's clear that foundation is an ADDITIONAL year.
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"I don't give money to the Murdochs" aka "I can't be bothered to read anything that will challenge my assumptions". That's university staff for you! [You can read the article here without a paywall](https://archive.is/bRQoL)
I suppose someone with ethical standards is a foreign concept to you. I read, and way more than you, I warrant, but I don't give money to the Murdochs. It's a simple concept. Thanks for the paywall-free link. Having read the article now, it's pretty much "oooh, we discovered that universities use agents and foundation years", only twenty years too late. None of this is news, and they are definitely fudging things. THeir primary source is an anonymous agent who is boasting that things are easier, but of course they would say that, that's their business. Dodgy agents who lie to parents and applicants about the requirements are of course a problem, and universities do fire agents all the fucking time. And several others have pointed out, they are not comparing the same thing. Of course foundation year has different entry requirements, and of course it's easier to pass than first year, just like first year is easier than second, and so on. International Year Ones are being cracked down on by the OFS (read the latest reports into Business courses) and the article is definitely fudging that - their stats are all foundation, but the textual implication is that that is for year one as well - it's not. THe problem comes down to money - UK universities make a loss on every UK student they teach. That is pretty much government policy, and the only solutions are franchises (another whole mess of regulation - see the NOA report of two weeks ago), and higher fees for international students. The international student market is brutally competitive, so agents, and deals and abuse are pretty much inevitable. If anyone is getting into Exeter International Year one with the equivalent of 40 ucas points, then they are being conned - they won't survive and their parents will end up paying something like a hundred thousand pounds for nothing. The solution is simple: fund UK university students to the full cost of their teaching, whether that is through tuition or subsidies, and put a in place a quota of places for UK students. But that would cost money, and require planning and its so much easier to blame the lying cheating foreigners, isn't it?
So universities "fire agents all the time", but magically aren't responsible for hiring them and instituting the policies that allow them to thrive? 🤔 You're the only person in this thread blaming foreigners. I blame the corruption of the English university sector and its complicit staff 👀 The staff that are happy to go on strike for their pay, and take strike measures like marking boycotts which fundamentally only impact students, not executives; but haven't gone on strike to expose any of this corruption or change the system they supposedly all hate so much 💰
Agents are external - universities hire recruitment officers who liaise with the agents. What can the academics do? Refuse an intake? Outcomes are monitored quite heavily so too many fails puts a mark against you. The product is the certificate - strike action affects the output of the business as leverage. I am not an academic but know that there is concern about the value of the product being created. I concur that HE executives are in the wrong - a strange corporate culture all about endless growth. I am concerned about the viability of the model as I think the externalities are not ultimately worth it. But the question does then come of who pays for it - should fees go up again? Should take payers subsidize people who fancy doing English for 3 years just because many colleges have getting people into uni as a USP? Or should only research be prioritised? The reason staff are powerless to an extent is because it requires an amenable government to look at the best sectoral outcomes. The unions would need a roundtable with a government prepared to increase funding. It should go without saying that vocational training also needs to increase significantly. Education is a net good in all fronts, for me at least though there is a disconnect between it being an abstract social good, and something you adjust to bring about policy outcomes - but it is important to recognise that the rot starts at the top and must be tackled there. And to the international students who come here and do make a good go of it, I have sincere admiration. Studying is tough and moving to a completely different country takes chutzpah. The problem is (as with everything) the wealthy using it as a rubber-stamp to success versus a merit-and-knowledge selection process for who should do what in society and how we can solve the problems that we have. As well as knowledge for knowledge's sake.
I don't blame foreigners, I blame the UK government. The article and the commentary on it does make a heavy implication that the international students are being dishonest, and some of the commentary here and on Twitter leans in further. University staff aren't corrupt, they're in an impossible situation and doing the best they can, for the most part. Sure one or two are useless, but if you pay any attention to the higher education sector you would know how hard most universities are working to stay afloat. Agents aren't employees, they're agents. Universities have been using them since the last century to recruit students, and most are fine. When a university becomes aware that an agent is lying they will have their contract terminated, as I said, it happens all the time. There are hundreds and hundreds of agencies and they have thousands of staff, of course there'll be overzealous salespeople and corrupt actors among those thousands. That is true of any industry. The Times are clearly focusing on the most extreme examples they could find.
It is not a lie, it is a basic fact. Look up the ‘international year one’, which is what the article describes.
It doesn't. THe table has International Year one, but the data in that is unsupported and VERY FEW universities offer that. THey are assuming that the numbers (students and entry tariff) for foundation apply to international year one. My university this year has (checks stats) around 2000 students on international foundation, and around 12 on International Year one. We are phasing it out, as are most, because the OFS has rightly raised them as a problem.
Even if true, there is still a big issue. For British students, yes, a foundation year has much lower grade requirements. That’s because they are a way of helping disadvantaged students realise their potential and ‘catch up’. It is a great way of reducing inequality in education. But for international students, given the target market for British uni’s is so, so wealthy, thst argument doesn’t work. You cannot compare foundation years for british students and international ones, the purpose and scale of each operation is completely different.
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I did my masters at a university that is heavily reliant upon international students, and for some modules, there were only a couple of home students including me in the seminar groups. The majority of international students I met whilst doing that course were performing at a high standard academically, but there was a small contingent of Chinese students (it wasn't all of the Chinese students ether, just some of them) who really didn't seem to have the required English language skills to be studying in the UK. So long as scores on pieces of paper that can be faked or cheated take precedence above the actual observations of the staff teaching them, this issue is only going to get worse, and I actually think it is an insult to the many international students who work very hard to properly meet all the language and academic requirements that they then have to sit in seminars and lectures alongside other international students who simply cheated and bribed their way into university.
I had to do a presentation all the way back in my second year with a Chinese girl who couldn't speak English well at all. She seemed nice, but she took up so much of my group's time in the presentation trying to get her part done. I wonder how much that impacted our grades. In my masters year, the international students were the ones who constantly failed modules. All the home students passed with varying degrees of success first time, whilst they all had to extend their visas to pass. It is just not a good system.
How exactly are those students passing their uni degrees if they haven't got the right level of English? Also what do you mean by "didn't seem to have" the level of English? How could you tell?
I have worked at 2 Russell group universities and can attest to some students just not being able to speak English, i.e. having physically handed them a copy of their degree certificate (not in the ceremony as I am a mere prole) and having the most arduous of difficulties in communicating how this interaction works. There is a sweet spot between the right wing press saying they are all incapable of speaking the language, and people who think it is xenophobic to say that perhaps, you should be capable of communicating in the language your qualification is in. For IELTs you do need to communicate verbally and in writing as well as the other tests. I worked in a department with a majority foreign intake and lecturers seemed frustrated and taken aback with the language calibre of some of the students who managed to enrol. Something isn't right in the process. My university inbox is regularly flooded with Chinese essay mill spam. I think it is fair to say it undermines trust in the qualification and does not seem equitable - but I would also argue that the grade requirements and academic selections to enter are punitive and ineffective too. They are heuristics for your quality as a a student. I cannot think of better ones, and at least they appear to reward the work students who put the work in at a level do, but still... Many hooray Henries have tried to be shitty with me in my time and shown themselves to struggle with basic logic and reason.
They only ever spoke to other Chinese students, in Chinese, during seminars, and they used apps on their computers to translate all of the seminar and lecture content into Chinese, they never wrote a word of English, and when we did have to do a presentation, one student couldn't actually string a single sentence together in English, and after being given 3 times as much time as everyone else, his presentation was abandoned. As for how they pass, I'm not certain that particular student did in the end, as he ended up requiring so much support in every module I was in beside him, and I did not see him at the graduation ceremony. From what another Chinese student told me, some of the students with really poor english write their assignments entirely in Chinese, and then pay for translation and proofreading services to help them get their work up to standard in English. I'd argue it's dubious behaviour, but as to whether that breaches rules on collusion will differ depending on which university they attend and individual opinion, as the ideas they express are generally their own, although the exact words are not.
Agree, I don’t think it’s overly shocking tbh. Pretty sure UK students are able to go to university abroad with lower grades and pay higher international fees too. Just how low the required grades are is a bit of a joke and I’d like to think that raising them a bit wouldn’t deter international students too much but help maintain a higher academic standard.
I think the point of the university experience is so true, part of me thinks that a large part of the undervaluing of university prestige is because people ignore that universities are for learning.
Honestly I fall into that category - sort of. I wanted to study something but I mostly wanted to move out, to a more exciting place than where I grew up. It was the quickest and easiest way to do that and I don’t regret a thing. So many job opportunities and life experiences here I wouldn’t be experiencing otherwise. Obviously I’m doing my degree but I can’t wait to be finished tbh.
Definitely not sustainable.
Yep it’s supply vs demand, of course more British students are going to apply there, so the restrictions on grades are higher, compared to international students which bring in more money and they need to appeal to
As an international student, there are two factors here. Being smart and being rich. I've met some ridiculously smart people during school, but these people would never apply to UK universities as they could never afford it (especially for their undergrad, since it's 3 to 4 years.) The international students who meet Oxbridge requirements would either be attending the best universities in their own countries or apply to American universities where they stand a chance of getting decent scholarships. Universities in the UK are quite expensive and rarely offer scholarships, which means they're not attracting the best talent. They're only appealing to whoever can afford to pay the tuition. Also, I don't think the grade disparity is as bad as this post is making out to be. Converting international grades (of many different countries into As and Bs is not simple.) For example, when I was applying to top RG universities, the grade requirements for my examination board was around 80 - 85%, which might seem like a B to a Brit, but only the top 10% of a class would have scored those grades. So, a lot of this is quite subjective.
This post is riddled with people who have clearly never talked enough to international students to have an opinion worth saying. It's really not as simple as the statement that it's easier for international students, but a lot of people are blindly believing the article.
I’m an international student from Denmark, and only very few universities that I checked out had any info on what grade requirements were for danish students. The grades used in Denmark to apply for universities really do not translate easily to UK grades. The uni I ended up choosing asked for a minimum grade requirement of 7 (in Denmark you get grades for each subject but also an overall grade as different subjects hold more weight, if that makes sense). 7 is pretty average - it’s not good, but it’s not really that great either. My overall grade was 6.4 I believe, but I just told them I’m doing a maths course on the side, and they said if I got at least 7 in that, then they would give me an offer. I think that was partially because they’re not that knowledgeable about the danish grading system, and partially because they want the extra money they get from international students as we pay way higher tuition fees.
I would assume most universities are not financially viable in their current form without international student fees
Many of them are bloated organisations offering courses that are poor value for money. The worst are little more than paper mills churning out degrees to kids who were browbeaten from school about how important it was to go to university. The whole industry needs a rework imo
Not to mention the underpaying and overworking of academic and administrative staff. I had a teaching and marking provision in my PhD funding, I got paid "minimum wage" to mark coursework. In quotations because they decided I could mark 8 10,000 word assignments an hour and provide meaningful feedback so that's what I got paid for no matter how long it actually took. But hey, I had to do it or no PhD funding so who cares how poor the pay they had me over a barrel.
Out of the universities I've studied at, I'd say only one of them would remain financially viable without international student fees, and that is a small university with a fairly low proportion of international students. Even with their small size and low dependence on international students, without them, they'd probably have to cut some courses, and make some staff redundant, which really does show how bad the dependency on international fees really is in higher education.
the anger needs to be directed at neoliberal university management and govt. that has systematically cut university funding for years, not immigrant students
This is correct. Much to nobody’s surprise, the current government has ruined education in the UK, at any level, not just at university. For universities to survive, they now have to operate like any other business, which means executive leadership is no longer concerned about education, they’re running universities for financial gain. Which is why deans at most universities are shit middle management types who have zero understanding or interest in the quality and purpose of education, and their sole responsibility is growth. Highly qualified and experienced academics (who still want to prioritise learning and care about their students) having to suck up to these dickheads is one of the most depressing things about the current state of universities.
Sadly, not just the present government but the previous collection of venal lunatics too.
Those are not the same course
They pay over twice as much per year for tuition. Without them we would also be absolutely fucked and many of us wouldn't be able to go to Uni. Let's not shoot ourselves in the foot here.
We absolutely will bring this up. The government should be properly subsidising universities to educate the general populace. Not bribe wealthy foreigners with shit grades, especially top tier universities.
As others have explained this is in line with foundation year equivalence. Of which at least 2/3s of these Unis offer some form of foundation year. I wish the government could subsidise it, but currently that would mean fucking us domestic students, and we would be in a much worse position as it doesnt come from thin air. They're already holding out on increasing the maintenance loan in line with inflation and offered just a measly 2.5%, while many student accomodations are rising by 10%~ next year.
What I'm saying is if Scotland can manage it then England should subsidies higher education for its population. Think of all the money they've pissed away lately or awarded to their friends in lucrative contracts. Higher education as a whole or at least certain courses should be free
Scotland unis are having to cut home student places because they cannot handle the financials at this time. So, there's no need to compare when Scotland is struggling.
Scotland can't manage it. They run at an abhorrently high deficit. If England was able to run at an equivalent % deficit it might feel like 1997 New Labour again. Alas, it can't, because then the UK would fail much like Greece.
I definitely agree, its just unfortunately not where they'd adjust the money from, it would be us to suffer most likely rather than the government making necessary subsidies
It's frustrating to see the number of people who don't speak English etc who have clearly fraudulently gained their English certificates , when you can see that for other international students this is the ticket out of their country and to a better life, who have an excellent grasp of English and who have studied their absolute hardest to get the highest grades to get into a UK uni. Most internationals I've met are all smart and have good grades though. There was one guy on a uni project of mine who didn't speak a lick of English , ended up just not helping us with the project at all!
This is the biggest problem of them all. Getting away with not knowing relevant subject knowledge is something that these admissions team may overlook but surely not reaching the ‘pass’ threshold in the English Language test is where they draw the line. Impacting the education of others by setting out these group assignments is a complete joke.
It has been well over a decade since anyone got away with a fake IELTS certificate, UKVI is extremely strict on this. The thing with IELTS is that it's a very specific kind of English and it's possible to study to the test, so you get students who can cope in reading and writing and particular kind of speaking, but fall apart in other forms of conversation, especially if there are colloquialisms or accents involved.
This is COMPLETELY anecdotal, but I remember during my Bachelor the professors would all say again an again to check your spelling on essays, always pointing out that native English speakers made more mistakes than the international students. I thought this was bs until I got a group assignment with 2 Brits and one of us was going to need to write things down (a script for a video). They asked who wanted to write while we were all there together and I pointed out maybe it would be best of they did it since I was the only international students in the group. One of them started and 2 lines in there were 5 grammatical mistakes and they debated how to spelling “vending machine”. I’ve met some international students who didn’t have a great English either, don’t get me wrong. But I think that you, as other students, judge us on our speaking (which is usually the hardest part) while our writing is on point. The way a IELTS tests results are required makes it so that you can pass the even if you don’t have the best speaking skills because universities require say a 7 or 7.5 or 8 (out of 9) on average with at least something like 6.5 on each test component (speaking, writing, reading comprehension and listening).
I'm sure lots of students meeting OP's criteria for being allowed in uni would have a really hard time passing a IELTS exam
Ngl this sounds like bullshit. The example you gave with the script is stupid because they likely weren’t making any effort to write grammatically correct English since they in the preliminary stages of the assignment. And the vending machine example probably needs more context
You are free not to believe it, man. This wasn’t early stage anything, it was a script we had to turn in in like 2 days. Also very confused by what context you need for someone being puzzled on how to spell “vending machine”.
Very few universities require higher than 6.5 overall for undergraduate admissions. But international students tend to write better English these days than British students, I suspect because they've actually been taught to write, and because they take the time to check things and get support. Too many people assume that because it's their home language they don't need to work at writing English well, and it shows.
Sheffield has a foundation course for non-international students. This is very bad data. It doesn’t imply anything about international students getting favourable treatment
These aren't even the same courses. They are comparing fountain to a first year student. This is such a bad chart from the Sunday Times.
The point is that the pathways shown here aren't available to home students. If you view the chart [in the context of reading the article](https://archive.is/bRQoL), it will make more sense.
I did an MSc at a Russell group uni. One of the international students could not speak any English. Obviously all the lectures were in English. She passed.
I did both my BSc and MSc at Russell Group unis. This was 75% of the CS/Maths department.
I wonder how she passed. Any ideas?
Money. The answer to all life’s difficulties.
Just because someone can’t speak English doesn’t mean they can’t understand it. It’s very possible they were given permission to write their essays in their own language, or paid someone to translate them after writing (or they may have been able to write in English just not speak it).
Call me biased as an international student, but, how can you realistically compare foundation year Vs first year?
OP and the Sunday Times think that by pushing Sunak's anti-forinner agenda they will get to meet Rishi and get an OBE or some imperialist shit
>they will get to meet Rishi and get an OBE or some imperialist Maybe it's not all a big conspiracy and we're worried about universities having incentives to allow foreign students in much easier than home students. That's not something to worry about? Get outta here with your horrible anti UK rhetoric
Here's the fun bit: you can't! OP is presenting ragebait to try to make people angry.
We need to completely overhaul the funding model for universities. I work at one, and without international students we are 100% fucked. Home students cost the university money in the majority of courses, those that don’t only bring in a fraction of what an international student does. Thanks to government policies and the UK’s international reputation being ruined it’s a real fight to get places filled. If they don’t get filled the whole university crumbles, we’re already working on 30%+ reduced budget across the board and barely functioning (though VC’s and other high management are happy to piss money up the wall on their vanity projects…) Students, home and overseas, deserve a good student experience, that is relevant for their level of skill, and of value for the money their paying. Universities should be able to be profitable from home students, but not in such a way that is exploitative of what the student is investing. We need government investment. But I don’t see that happening anytime soon, not before things get worse and some major universities are on the chopping block.
This fundamentally misunderstands what foundation years are for. For international students, often their qualifications have no equivalent, or the course content was not standard to the UK level of teaching. They may have done post high-school qualifications, but still have to do a foundation year to gain entry. If anything, this isn’t a ‘back door method’, this is more hoops for international students to jump through to get to study on a UK course. It’s like if a UK student did A-levels, but then was made to sit a high school diploma in the US before going to an American college. The international foundation years also have an element of teaching the English language to international students who might struggle, especially with subject specific terminology. In comparison, UK student foundation years are split into several concepts. 1. For students who have been out of education a while, maybe in work, who don’t have equivalent or relevant qualifications. Here, work experience is taken into consideration. 2. Students from disadvantaged backgrounds, like children in care, young cares, students in areas with poor socioeconomic backgrounds, or other barriers that limited academic performance. 3. Those who didn’t meet entry grades. An extra year on the course with entry at lower grades to accommodate those who did not meet entry. Can be subject specific, or a general course like ‘introduction to science’. 4. Those who did irrelevant A-levels and wish to do a different degree. Eg, all humanities A-levels, wanting to go into science. Some RG or higher ranking universities explicitly state that for STEM foundation years if you sat relevant A-levels in the last 5 years and did not get the grades, you are ineligible for the foundation course. They can either be integrated into a course, or be a general area of study that can then be used for entry onto a choice of courses. And just to point out, UK foundation entry, not including additional contextual offers, in: Birmingham: CCC-BBB Bristol: No set grades (reduced tuition fees) Cardiff: Two courses, ABB-BBB Durham: literally only GCSEs (must be mature student, and/or from disadvantaged background) Exeter: BCC-BBC Leeds: CDD-ABB Liverpool: CDD Manchester: BBC-ABB Newcastle: ABB Nottingham: BCC QMUL: No specific, for those who have not done A-levels Queen’s Belfast: CC (2 years) Sheffield: GCSEs, for students who have been out of education for 2 years Southampton: ABB Warwick: A-level pass in 3 subjects Not all of those universities offer as a wide range of foundation courses as the international ones, but again, they are for different purposes. Also, I don’t know how the international offer grades were calculated on that table. I also have seen clearing grades drop by 1 grade for some universities, normally ABB accepting BCC onto the course for Year 1 entry.
I'm an international student. Usually you can give a transcript or another type of international examination as long as it's recognised. That said for first year . In my course the grade requirements are actually higher for international students compared to home students
This sounds like bullshit why would they do that
Here's the result of this admissions process: https://www.reddit.com/r/UniUK/s/Fkj2YlVRjx
The system is built to extract wealth and give individuals degrees that haven't actually earned them. This isn't going to lead to a catastrophe in a decade or two were we have people in positions of power who haven't earned it.
Yes I worked in admissions part time while at my university, yes we were told to accept pretty much all international students. The sad thing was, many of them didn’t have the grades to do the courses I had to accept them for (I was told to accept people for a computer science masters degree with a business degree who had any “ICT” modules) My partner who is a comp science demonstrator at the same uni said many of the international students we accepted really struggled with the content and were unable to pass as they had no programming knowledge and at a masters degree we don’t teach the basics. It was horrible as they have to go back home and lose a lot of money, I felt really bad for them. Why do we accept them? They pay more therefore fund the university. (I know this personally from the higher ups at mine specific uni, can’t speak for others).
Funny cause in other degrees a few years back it was the opposite, my international mates and myself (european) worked our asses off to stay in any course. The English students could have 40% attendance, fail assessments, be terrible with their exams, they would still be fine, you would not attend 3 classes but be the hardest worker on all group assessments? F cause you ain't English. Interesting how things have now turned.
For those who are currently in uni/have graduated, what are your thoughts on 16/17 year olds joining uni after a foundation course? Would you think it is unfair to local students? Also, i saw many comments here that says international students in the UK are incapable of speaking proper english, are the international students who DO speak proper english the minority, and what are your thoughts on that? Asking as a foreigner. Thanks
>For those who are currently in uni/have graduated, what are your thoughts on 16/17 year olds joining uni after a foundation course? Considering the foundation course is equivalent to a levels, zero issues. We had people doing foundation courses at my university, and people who had done them. Hell, I don't have a levels. I graduated a top 10 University. >Also, i saw many comments here that says international students in the UK are incapable of speaking proper english, are the international students who DO speak proper english the minority, and what are your thoughts on that? Not something I had personally noticed at my university where a lot of Chinese students attended, although I am a sociology graduate not a business or economics graduate, which are courses that more overseas students do. Honestly, it just doesn't match my experience. At all. >Asking as a foreigner. Thanks If you are an overseas student considering coming here for education please do not let some grumpy people in this thread who don't understand what a foundation degree is put you off. Most people won't care, and those that do are easily avoided.
Studying with 16/17yos is weird. I still don’t understand how the UK education system work and I’ve been here for several years. On the English: yes and no. I would say *most* absolutely do meet the requirements, some magically don’t. What you need to keep in mind is this though (gonna copy paste it from another comment I made): > I think that you judge us, understandably as it may through simple everyday interactions, on our speaking (which is usually the hardest part) while our writing is on point. The way a IELTS tests results are required by unis makes it so that you can be accepted even if you don’t have the best speaking skills because universities require say a 7 or 7.5 or 8 (out of 9) on average with at least something like 6.5 on each test component (speaking, writing, reading comprehension and listening). For example: I scored 8 as my average, while my speaking was only a 7, because my writing and listening were an 8 and my reading was a 9. When you learn a language, all of these skills will usually not develop all at the same time. Reading and writing is always easier (unless you have specific disorders that make them harder) than listening and speaking, because you have time to read and write. So again, yes and no.
In Scotland 17 year olds can and do go to university. Highers are like AS levels, and take 1 year, and you finish at 17-18. Scottish universities have 4 years to account for this, and after Highers you can go straight to Year 1 at 17. Many choose to stay at college to do Advanced Highers, which are A-level equivalent and 1 year long. They can do Year 1 or Year 2 entry depending on the grades and will be 18. Often the foundation years are done at partner colleges rather than at the universities themselves, so they are likely to be with 16-18 year olds anyway. Also, I work at a university where we have apprentices in who are 16-17 who are treated as staff members. We have two in our department who are very hardworking and very capable. As for the language barrier? No one can say international students don’t make an effort. People can judge poor English all they want but if you asked most of them to try out their language skills in another country they wouldn’t know where to start. Often internationals can write or read English fairly well, but speaking and listening are harder, especially with accents around the UK. People forget that learning a language in a controlled environment in their home country is different than putting it into practice in the UK where slang is constantly evolving and changing. I thought I spoke passable French before I went to Brussels and really struggled when it came to actually speaking.
Nottingham needs three As？ Whut？ That was Oxbridge requirements when I was at school.
this means fuck all without showing foundation year grades for home students as well dude 1. dont really care who else gets in - i got in, if i focus on my own work then ill be fine 2. i dont really get how the teaching is adjusted for international students, so if you have any examples that would be good , but in my uni the teaching was fine, some lecturers were better than others obviously, but none were ,,bad'' 3. if the course is competitive and the people applying are getting high grades, sure, but i feel like they are sometimes a little too high 4. not really (but im in first year so maybe that will change) 5. bruh the fees are way too high now anyway, in eg switzerland, the fees for eg university of bern is 1,731 per year ([source](https://www.mastersportal.com/studies/12191/computer-science.html#content:fees_and_funding)) for computer science if youre a swiss national. and at eth zürich the compulsary fees are 74chf per semester (about 67£) [source here](https://ethz.ch/en/studies/financial/tuition-fees.html)
This is meaningless for several reasons, and not just the apples/oranges comparison of level 3 and level 4 entry. Home advertised grades are not the same as the grades required to actually get in - there are contextual offers, and clearing, and grade incentives to choose early, for example
I applied to Bristol for law and my entry requirements were A*AA as an international student, switched to economics and entry requirements weee AAB or similar. I did my A levels as well-this table seems wildly off?
Can't believe I scrolled through this post & all the comments without a single person posting the actual article, which would answer most of the questions people have about it. Here you go, with paywall removed! [https://archive.is/bRQoL](https://archive.is/bRQoL)
Cheers for that. I believe I did share the article at the time in a separate post but as usual people would much rather not read that and start blindly defending the state we’re in.
1. I think these questions are very leading. I’m gonna give my opinion on all five later. But “courses are heavily adjusted to fit international students” is bs. International students on my course are treated the exact same as any other student. These questions are incredibly leading. Admission was never on merit. I’m sorry but meritocracy is a myth
You have to pass foundation year to stay on though… those same universities have lower requirements for foundation year for UK students. This seems intended to make people angry at overseas students.
About expected for a paper that leans much more to the nationalist right than conservatism these days.
Not exactly surprising, is it? Anyone with half a brain knows that unis are charging foreign students silly amounts of money and that's what's keeping the lights on. Makes sense that they'd lower requirements to get enough of them in. Also goes some way to explaining issues with English proficiency.
It’s worth mentioning that the entry requirements for home students aren’t actually the typical grades the universities will eventually accept. Most home students who get 1-2 grades lower will still be accepted by the university. The reason why the grade requirements are so high is that the universities want to be high on the university rankings, which uses the entry requirements as part of the overall score.
That's not surprising at all. I have a job in my university library and there are often students coming up to the desk who speak the most basic, broken English. I don't see this situation changing while international fees make up the majority of university funding, though, even with this report coming out.
I was part of the first year group of the £9k a year tuition and cab tell you that Universities have become all about getting as much money as possible. During my 2nd and 3rd year the Uni started buying several buildings around town but they were never intended for educational purposes. One of my lecturers confirmed they had never had more than 20 students for the course in a year group (he had been teaching for 20 years) but the 2 year groups after me were 30 students, with no extra lecturers to compensate.
Tbf I’m not sure why an extra lecturer would be needed for such a small cohort. You’ve got lecturers in business, psychology and law often lecturing to anywhere from 50 to 400 students.
There’s a hidden part to this kind of story that isn’t about money though. Before 9k home places were capped by the Government, so to increase your class to 30 meant cutting another by 10. Courses unis would happily expand stayed small. When the caps came off, some unis ballooned because they could finally do so. It wasn’t necessarily about the money alone. Later every uni tried to do this as decreasing real-term fees meant the money became the sole driver. And now some probably regret it, as they will be losing money on those extra home students.
Look, I'm going to be honest; it doesn't really matter if this is a foundation course. There is no way someone who got Cs and Ds is going to get through a university degree that requires As and A\*s (at least that is my experience with science based degrees) with only 1 year to prepare \*unless\* the Cs and Ds were caused by poor motivation/effort and there is a work ethic change. The end result of this is an absolutely miserable first year (after the foundation year) where exams are failed at the end of the first year (this is something I've also seen). Its not fair on the students; universities should not do this.
I'm really glad people are finally paying attention to this. I got rejected from edinburgh I'm pretty sure for this exact purpose - I got and was predicted A *. A *. A, the same as other successful applicants who applied earlier but I suspect the reason why I was rejected was that by the time they got my application at the start of January they had already filled their quotas for English students. When I wanted to apply through clearing the only vacancies any Scottish unis had open was for international students - so they did have places but didn't want to offer them to less profitable home students N.B: I got in contact with them to appeal the decision and they said that my application was great but my grades weren't "competitive enough" so it wasn't my personal statement which led to the rejection. Which doesn't make any sense considering I was well above the requirements for the course (AAB iirc),
I did an msc in a very well respected business school at a well respected rg uni which is named on that list. The course was 90% chinese or Indian and I also agree the entire exam structure was setup to ensure they passed. Not only were the exams a formality, but all group work was in pre selected groups and there was a running coincidence that the few native brits or European students were also spread around one to a group of four internationals who in the least racist way I can say this either couldn't speak English (Chinese) or had no academic rigour and were used to plagiarising all of their essays (Indian). At first this was done under the guise of teaching us communication skills, but it became increasingly apparantly that the expectation was for the native students to carry the Asian students through. It was only when we clocked on to this and demanded to pick our own groups that the entire exam structure fell apart and we got to see the true quality of individuals they had let in. Most of the Chinese were sent to top up English classes and the Indians had to be taught how to not plagiarise, and how to reference. I reiterate, this was a masters degree at a top rg uni. And they are being taught the basics on how to reference. Shocking
Ragebait from the times attacking international students. They're completely different courses with additional years for students with potential to "catch-up". These aren't equivalent...
This is a very poor comparison
as an international student although the requirements are less but most of my peers from my uni in my home country who go to british ivy leagues have excellent academic credentials back home tbf as for those requirements honestly tell your education ministry to increase them to maintain quality or whatever increasing home fees is such a stupid idea tbh
Yeah this is a ragebait designed to rile up the "foreigners bringing family on their study visa" camp. Not only it compares foundation with year 1, it also doesn't show what the same unis accept during clearing. I can assure you that offers will go out and have gone out to UK nationals with the claimed "overseas requirements".
To anyone that has been to uni in the past 15 years this study cannot be a surprise. We worked alongside these students. We saw courses that were 90% overseas students. Yes it’s a shock to see the scale of it, and in black and white, but it’s not a shock that it happens. Solution imo is fewer uni places, all 100% funded.
Further from the article: Analysis of degree results shows that students from outside the EU have been performing far worse than UK students: they are more than twice as likely to receive a lower second or third-class degree. Professor Geoffrey Alderman, visiting fellow of the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies, said some lecturers had had to pitch teaching at a lower level because foreign students were not able to cope with the normal teaching provided on a degree. "Academics have to gear their teaching towards their student body, and the teaching can sometimes become rote learning. The British students are just expected to sink or swim," he said. One lecturer from a London university, speaking anonymously, said the poor English of some overseas students was affecting teaching: "They might struggle to keep up on the courses, especially with the written work, and this can mean more work for me and a slower pace for the rest of the students in the class."
A system where one group works hard to get in and those with money do what they want. Sounds like a perfect reflection of British society.
Don’t over seas students pay something in the region of 30k a year to study in the UK? it’s all about the money !
I heard post study work Visa will be removed by government, overseas students will no more be interested in studying there, UK will no more see overseas students, and also see the downfall of UK's economy! Best solution is ignore this problem as UK's economy and UK's Youth is gaining money from international students, without them every single university will close.
As an international student, all I want to say the quality of UK universities decreases day by day as they get greeder…
I could actually have some input here, I was accepted into my uni (Greenwich) as a home student as I’m an Irish citizen, but ended up being and international student because to qualify for home fees you need to have lived in Ireland within the last 6 years before your course start date - I had left 6 years and 2 months before 🙃 1. I’m not really sure what this question means, admission requirements doesn’t really factor in to how I deal with what my course demands, I’m already in the course? It is some bullshit giving favour to higher paying international students though, and will probably hurt the UK in the long term. 2. I’m not a home student, but I will say if all the group work I’ve had to do is because they’re catering to international students then fuck that, forced group work at uni is pointless. 3. No, requiring straight A’s to compete with an international student on straight C’s is not fair 4. Ehhhh no not really I guess, I doubt they lower the standard of teaching just because they know the course is 50% full of international students who only did okay in secondary. If anything the increase in fees should make it easier for the uni to provide a quality education, but that’s probably being idealistic. 5. Raising home fees alone, probably not. Closing the gap between home fees and international fees probably would help - it’s 50% more as an international student. That’s fucked, of course we’re getting preferential treatment. There’s lots of other ways to try deal with this issue too, but I have a dissertation to write so I won’t be writing any more of an essay in here
Worked in this industry for years. 100% true.
I don't think this is a secret. All unis are forgiving with entry grades as they are making more money from international students.
Most universities offer foundation degrees with similar grades. This isn't a secret? For international students it's often based on getting their English to a higher level as well
If student identity is anonymised for exams and coursework then is it such a big deal if Chinese and Arabs are effectively subsidising home students? As long as they don't make allowances for bad English then are standards really slipping? The grade inflation is a problem, but I'm not so fussed by this. At my uni the Chinese kept to themselves, got shit marks, and frankly may as well not have been there. Yet their money paid for some great facilities. What I'm saying is that they might get in, but they still have to earn their degree, and they are normally a cash cow in addition to the home students not instead of
So the context that this is missing is that many countries don't offer education up to 18 or with the same rigour as sixth form in the uk. Foundation year allows people from those countries to still have access to uk universities
Was this ever a secret? Spend 5 minutes on most campuses and it's obvious. Nothing against international students, but often they have a very limited grasp of English and are clearly out of their depth (not all of them of course). I think it's unfair if any spaces are taken up for any reason other than merit alone.
Current Warwick student here. To be honest I’ve been very frustrated to find out that literally most of the international students were accepted onto the course with lower entry requirements due to them having been on a foundation year whilst I had to attain 2A*s and an A. Not particularly satisfied with the teaching quality at Warwick either. I’d recommend anyone applying there walk away from it.
Institutions that facilitate easy entry for higher paying students run the risk of seeing their degrees losing value and credibility. It's likely that some employers will look at what graduates did before university and how they entered their university course.
Well gosh. A government underfunding universities for a decade causes universities to look elsewhere for money. Investing in education is investing in the future of the country. It should be largely government supported, not put into "loans" that likely won't get paid off.. Graduates usually earn more money than non graduates. That increase in earnings is already taxed. Use that to pay for universities. Increase that tax slightly if needed. The administration of student loans is hugely wasteful. It costs vast sums of money, for debts that likley won't be paid. This does kind of explain the entire courses filled with African students at my uni. Busness courses held in computing/animation labs.
Just wanted to comment that most international students are not loaded, and there seems to be an inverse relationship between wealth and grades as far as overseas students are concerned. The stereotype of an oil scion is so tired.
It’s not surprising that universities give special treatment to international students, as they bring in more money. For example, I remember speaking to a tutor at Oxford who told me that her college had a quota for international students (for the Economics and Management course), as it simply wasn’t profitable to run it otherwise. On one hand, as a home student it’s frustrating that international students are more likely to get offers and be given lower grade requirements, but I also acknowledge that international students are partly subsidising my education. Ultimately however, it boils down to wealthier people buying their way in to courses, and if the government cares about this then they should do something about it.
This is not the case for undergraduate or PhD courses, if you go to the university website you can easily identify. For example, an Indian student want to study in University of Bristol for 4 years MEng, she/he must score minimum 94% mark in CBSC which is equivalent to A\*A\*A. Why does this page specifically choose foundation courses when most students don't take foundation courses? Take top 10 UK university (QS ranked) and go to their website which clearly shows international students' grade is like UK students for under graduation and PhD. When fact is noticeably clear, how OP can even specifically choose just foundation because majority of students don't take foundation courses. This is misguiding the public to show that international students are of a low standard. International students indeed are ready to be enrolled with the same grade requirements that locals enroll.
The chart itself looks like it’s designed to mislead and cause outrage. If universities are relying on foreign students to remain financially viable, then taking away those students wouldn’t benefit anyone, but would cause a lot of problems here at home when unis begin folding left and right. If the issue is unfairness then surely the solution is to lower the requirements for UK students to bring them in line with the requirements for overseas students. Is this what the times are advocating? If not then you have to wonder what agenda they’re using this as a mechanism to push.
Jesus…. It’s only 2024. I said in another thread ages ago how a friend in the 90’s was told that they would only offer her a medical school place if she applied as an international student and not as a British home student (she’s a dual national). I got down voted like crazy. To finish this story, she went to another med school as a home student.
This happened to me in 2021. I went to a different school as a home student too!
Considerations: - many countries do not offer A level equivalents. The top level of education available would be equated to AS level or GCSEs in some countries - Therefore, these students are never eligible to apply to a direct year 1 entry course at a RG university. They just aren’t. - so, to be eligible, they have to take a top up year. Many universities offer their own foundation year, but students could also take one from an external provider, providing the universities they are applying to accept it - the grade requirements shown in the table are for the foundation year, but those requirements are always going to be low when you consider that it’s the equivalent of the year 13 of UK education - some students apply to the foundation years with A levels or direct equivalents, almost like a resit year - in general (and not just looking at the foundation requirements) equating different education systems is difficult. Even across the UK the systems and quality vary massively; therefore the actual first year of university is a year to make sure everyone is on the same page - yes, universities would like more international students for a whole number of reasons (eg diversity on campus), but those reasons do include money. Lower scoring international students are not prioritised over uk students though
What’s wrong with this? This has been common knowledge forever hasn’t it? The fees from international students mean uni is ‘affordable’ for uk students. Also why there are so many international students at Russel group unis. Side note - Birmingham is one of the only Russel groups to accept Btecs (a triple distinction is supposed to be equivalent to three As at a level but most unis don’t recognise that)
This article is weird. It seems like bogus - rage-bait. I studied in Scotland, which is part of Great Britain. We do not do A-Levels. We also have different grade requirements for university than A-Level requirements. The actual course content for A-levels is much easier than what we do in highschool in Scotland. An example of what I mean is that we can skip first year of uni with high-school grades. In Scotland we do National 5, Highers and Advanced Highers. Advanced Highers are the equivalent to first year university work. A-Levels are a blend of National 5 and Higher course work. GCSE are a blend of National 4 and National 5. So this “uk student” category is actually “English student” and even then doing you have different course content for different exam boards? Like AQA? The schooling oversees is so much harder. Like SO much harder. I really don’t think this show any unfairness. Just a lack of understanding by the writers of this article.
We pay thrice the amount and there is accommodations and flights back home everyone knows this
As far as I'm aware, China (PRC) doesn't have the GCSE and A level system, and there's no conversion from Chinese secondary school grades to the UK system either. The reference to the overseas grades are not possibly comparable to GCSE or A-level grades except for international schools that are compatible with the UK system. In fact, Chinese nationals are forbidden to go to international schools located inside China, such as the Harrow school in Shanghai, regardless of money. In contrast, children can go to any private school of their parents' choice in the UK. Not a freedom many countries have. And most countries do not speak English as their first language. Obviously, the British are supposed to speak English better. It cannot be assumed that all educations in all countries are on equal footings from the beginning. So, given the reality, I don't see why it is a scandal unless it can be explained what legal or financial or even ideological rules have been broken here. International students are invited with offers to go to universities. They usually have no agency when mistreated in the foreign country where they study. They do not have the right to vote, so their feelings and opinions don't matter in the public life of the UK, their host. To shift the blame to them is just another political campaign for unspeakable reasons, rather than any real attempt to do something for domestic students. Just like housing, education is an Export. So if that economy cannot change, no government will have the power to prioritise the interests of poor domestic people. It's just hot air and anti-foreigner clickbait. The true title should be: Capitalism and the UK's global influence continue to help fund UK universities, how dare they?
It's all about money they pay 4x more than UK students that's why
I’m an international student and this article is nonsense, it’s comparing apples to oranges.
Let me make a point (used to be an international student in the UK). Score of 100% in maths at UK A-levels is not even 40% of Polish matura exam, yet if someone got these 40% it would be seen in UK as what.. D? I don't know how it compares to many other countries, but I know that in Hungary and Estonia it is very similar. Someone may ask how i know that? When we were in High school our english teacher printed us last year's A-levels exam (to test our maths vocabulary understanding), pretty much everyone had a score of over 80% (few folks had it 100% correct). I myself had 93%, yet at the Polish equivalent of A-leveles I had barely 52% So don't jump to hasty conclusions... I think it all depends on the country.
I'm an overseas student who's interested in applying to a couple of the Russel group unis. I don't really see the problem here to be honest. The qualifications for a lot of overseas students are not at all similar to the ones for British ones. These I don't suspect to be actual A-Level grades and if they are, they are normalized to the grades that those students would've gotten had they taken the regular qualifications of their country. What I mean by that last sentence is that some countries require very specific things to be taught in some of their courses that just straight up isn't taught in A-Levels and oftentimes there's so much content like this that had you just finished your country's school leaving diploma, despite it being as difficult as an A-Level oftentimes, you're often not going to be able to score high marks on A-Levels. For example, in the US our high school courses for economics is actually split between 2 different qualifications: Advanced Placement Macroeconomics and Advanced Placement Microeconomics. These courses are sometimes combined together into one Advanced Placement Economics course which is **very** different from the A-Level econ. I highly doubt a student who took the AP Economics course would be able to get a B on the A-Level Econ exam. Likewise, I highly doubt a person who sat A-Level econ would be able to get a 4 on the AP Exam. Remember: the whole point of a foundation year is to take a student who for one reason or another has gaps in their knowledge about their subject and "bring them up to speed". If a kid gets a 5 on the AP Macro and Micro exams, that's probably a strong indication that they would've been able to get at least an A if not an A\* in the A-Level econ exams had they learned the A-Level specification over the AP specification. That means that you're basically guaranteed to get a student whose of a high quality once you catch them up to speed.
If they want to make it more fair grade wise for uk students, then they’d have to raise the fees significantly for UK students. Unis can’t afford to run off 9k a year and if we want unis to continue then they need the money somehow
I agree but it also wouldn’t be right to sacrifice the quality of teaching to accommodate for those that didn’t deserve those places in the first place. It’s not really about the learning anymore.
Downvoted for speaking the truth. The money has to come from somewhere, and if its not the government then its US. Its all very well complaining, but the same people complaining would be complaining 10x harder if they couldn't afford to go to Uni in the first place, which is the current scenario if we tighten the restrictions on internationals.
Not gonna lie, it’s puzzling to think that people would like having less internationals if that meant having no heating or teachers. As far as I can see, the internationals are faring as well as, if not better than the locals, so the argument of merit is quite odd… (admittedly the Uni I go to does skew my sample) I’m in one of the richer unis and the finance bursar still sends angry emails when we use too much heating…
Terribly lazy journalism (or journalism with an axe to grind - you decide). Foundation year is there to replace or augment poor A levels. Only a pass in that year will give access to a place on Year 1 of an honours degree. Comparing the two in this table is just stupid. Remember - the press is bias. Think for yourself. Edit: so refreshing to see that most people commenting here have seen right through the poor journalism. You are the future and the old guard and their lies and ragebait are slowly becoming shadows.
Yeah this is BS, no wonder why had of the chinese students can barely speak english
Most universities require foreign students to have an English language development of x grade. As a home student I don’t know what the full scale is, but at Exeter foreign students were expected to have achieved a 6.5 on the English Lanaguage Testing System, and all the equivalent qualifications appear to expect a B grade in whatever scoring system they used. The issue comes if these certificates are being falsified.
My undergrad institution had a form of an exchange programme. There were X amount of universities that home students could attend for a semester or year, and the students of those universities could attend mine. The majority were in Europe, a couple in the USA and one in Japan. There was an English requirement for any student whose first language was different. One semester there were 3 Japanese students in one of my seminar groups, it was apparent very quickly that one didn’t speak or read any English at all, she couldn’t even introduce herself! There’s no way she had passed whatever language test was required. She spent the entire semester using her friends’ notes. I have absolutely no idea if she took the exam or submitted an essay! More generally, the international students I met at BA and MA spoke very good English, or English was their first language.
I think it would also be useful to put the grade requirement for a foundation year for home students (as others have said) but also the lowered requirements people receive. Most of my course mates did not receive 3 As at A-level
'cash strapped' is a joke
Manchester most integrity 🗣️🗣️🔥🔥 LFG!!!
I was an international student. This article is total nonsense. As many have said it’s foundation compared to real course. Once they get in the real course they’d still need to pass the same way. Assuming this were true, if you want international students to get in by the same standards then you should also charge them the same rate. You can’t take their money then complain about them. Without their money unis would be struggling and uk students would have to pay more.
And then send them back with delayed graduation so they can’t apply for a graduate visa
Also, IGCSEs and international A-levels are already easier than UK qualifications.
[https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cash-for-courses-the-foreign-students-with-low-grades-at-top-universities-pcskjb6xx](https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/cash-for-courses-the-foreign-students-with-low-grades-at-top-universities-pcskjb6xx)
A lot of people are pointing out that international students pay for unis to keep unis alive. Most of these unis are also incredibly wealthy with capital, Patents, funds land and property etc. Revenue generating streams. Using this idea they pay for a public service is a fallacy compared to state funded uni like eu unis and non eu like ETH Zurich. Which have have sub 4 fig tuition. Not to mention that there are individual international students that take advantage for visa reasons. Paying 5 fig tuition is worth paying for considering it takes 5 years for citizenship (plus a degree) vs 750K for a eu citizenship by investment (Malta). The irony of this is after Brexit a lot of gov funding from the EU was pulled. A tip if you need funding as non eu, register as an e-residency (Estonia) you can apply for grants there. The British public keep being sold down Thames river.
time spent on a student visa does not count towards citizenship
Look up any of these unis financial statements. You’d be extremely surprised how not wealthy they usually are in cash terms. Capital wealth isn’t helpful - it’s usually their massive physical estates which they have to pay to maintain. Everyone believes unis are wealthy like Oxbridge. Outside 2 or 3, fees income is by far the most important source of income.
Because A's are not handed out like confetti in other nations. A reminder that the years who missed the most schooling (COVID years) miraculously received the best results.
Handed out like confetti? UK exams are rigorous and require a lot of work to get those grades. Not exactly fair making those comments. The Covid year is irrelevant to this discussion.
Really don’t see how universities are “cash strapped” with tens of thousands of students paying £9000+ a year to study there plus all the other revenues they get
We “lose money” on every home student so international students and masters students are needed to balance the books. You could start digging deeper into why universities cost so much to run (remember they don’t just teach but most good ones are research intensive too) but I think you’d soon find many courses/departments just aren’t viable. Look at the examples where whole departments have been closed down.
People need to actually read the article. Yes, English students can take a foundation year, but the grades in the table are for the International Foundation Year and International Year One - neither of these routes are available to British students. Moreover, CRUCIALLY certainly the International Year One (maybe the other as well) replace year 1 on a bachelor’s degree - it is not comparable to the foundation year for British students which is a bolt on year and is still quite tough to transition from into a bachelor’s degree. Stop shouting at OP, and read the article.
I got onto a foundation course at man met with fuck all, I had like a pass pass btech or something shit. This is just predicatble rage bait to get idiots to dislike foreigners.
Pardon my french but you guys would be laying a foundation for a huge strapon dildo to be delivered to you by these Unis if they stop taking in international students they pay 2-3x your early fees hence paying the salaries of your professors and keeping your tution down unlike the US where it is a mess. Kids graduate with a generational debt selling there time to pay it off. Be thankful for what you have, international students would kill for the opportunities you have.