Chinese Students Still Prefer United Kingdom, In spite of Brexit

Implications of Brexit on education in the UK

This year saw a marginal rise in the number of applicants who have applied for different universities across the UK. There is reluctance in the students of certain countries to study in Britain, but Brexit has no influence on Chinese aspirants who want to pursue higher studies in English universities. Authorities have identified education as one of the means to generate income and are making policies to attract more and more foreign students. The students who do not belong to the European Union have to pay almost thrice the fee; it may be one of the reasons for some of the students to bail out on the UK. But all these drawbacks didn’t stop Chinese students to apply in different colleges in the UK. This year they have outnumbered North Irish applicants. They are at number four after Scotland, Wales, and England. As per the data provided by University and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS), this year saw the steep rise of 30% from China, from North Ireland, it was around 18,520, which is a slight decrease from the previous year. The Non-UK European students were only 50,650, which is only a dismal 1 % increase. But the numbers are 13% better if we compare it with the past year. Thanks to the aspirants from China, India, and Hong Kong. “The global appeal of U.K. higher education has never been clearer, with record demographic-beating application rates in England and Wales and the steep rise in international applications, especially from China.” as acknowledge by Clare Marchant, UCAS CEO.

The administration is keen to develop education as a major source of foreign income

The Government is very keen to boost its income and want to grab the opportunity to attract foreign students to pursue higher education in the UK. With student-friendly policies, it wants to reach about 600,000 in the coming decade. There is some concern related to this growth, are the institutions well equipped to handle such a large number of foreign students and can they adapt accordingly to provide the highest quality of education? As far as local students are concerned it rose from 272,920 to 275,520, although there is a decline of 2% in the age demographic of eighteen-year-olds. This year also saw a 6% and 3% rise respectively for England and Scotland from the underprivileged area. The students are applying more to prestigious universities than lesser-known institutions. This shows tremendous pressure mounting on higher education.