Foreigners charged up to £35,000 to take degrees in UK

By Graeme Paton, Education Editor

Figures show that overseas students face paying up to four times more for an undergraduate course as classmates from the UK. 

British students are currently charged a maximum of £9,000-a-year for a degree and those in Scotland often pay just £1,820 for studying in their own country. 

But experts warned that universities were increasingly turning to high-paying foreigners to boost their income and fill holes in the higher education budget. 

Research by The Complete University Guide also showed that universities were charging far more to all students to take postgraduate courses, which are not subject to the same fee controls as undergraduate degrees. 

The highest single fee charged for any course starting in autumn 2013 is believed to be £41,000 for Oxford’s one-year Master of Business Administration (MBA) course. Fees will rise further to £45,800 in 2014/15. 

The conclusions are made just days before the publication of A-level results when universities will confirm places for hundreds of thousands of school-leavers. 

For only the second time this year, British students will pay up to £9,000 in annual fees for all courses, but today’s study reveals that universities will still expect foreigners to pay far more. 

Average undergraduate fees for classroom-based courses will stand at £11,289 for overseas students in September, rising to £13,425 for laboratory courses and £24,228 for medicine and dentistry degrees. Total fees for this group are up by almost four per cent in a year. 

Nine universities confirmed that fees for clinical degrees would exceed £30,000, including £35,000 at King’s College London and £33,750 at University College London. 

It follows the publication of research last year that showed income from foreign students has more than doubled over the last decade to £2bn – accounting for around 10 per cent of universities’ total funding. 

Daniel Stevens, international students’ officer at the National Union of Students, said the gulf in fees was “scandalous”. 

“International students are an important part of the social, cultural and academic make-up of university life and should not be treated simply as cash cows,” he told Times Higher Education magazine. 

Len Shackleton, professor of economics at Buckingham University, said high international fees kept some university departments afloat, adding: “I do think some of these differentials are very difficult to justify.” 

The study also showed that postgraduate fees for British students ranged from around £3,500-a-year to £13,000, with one university – the London School of Economics – charging up to £27,552. The most expensive postgraduate course for foreign students was at Queen Mary, University of London, which charges £38,532 for clinical courses. 

Typical MBAs cost £15,432 for British students and £16,795 for foreigners, rising to £41,000 at Oxford and £38,000 at Manchester. 

Oxford insisted its price tag was not excessive compared with similar courses at prestigious universities in the United States and mainland Europe. /Telegraph