Higher (E)d(U)cation and student numbers - what an utter cock up. PART 1

UPDATE: After very good and thought provoking responses from readers I have decided to label this as part 1 of I do not know how many. Clearly it is an issue that needs debating which is why I will answer and considers points raised in the comments. Thank you for reading 13th Spitfire. Though let this be said, there seems to be a prevailing orthodoxy in Britain that e.g. Muslims may only criticise Muslims otherwise it is racism where the same analogy can be applied to students where the resulting feeling would instead be ignorance. I invite you all, young and old, students and non-students to have a crack at education policy because it is so fundamentally misguided anyone, with any remark, can make a positive contribution.

Have you ever stopped to wonder how many students there actually are in British universities? Perhaps it is not relevant for you who already have an education or simply cannot be bothered for others reasons (perhaps you have an education from the old days when it actually meant something unlike now when AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA is still only above average). I on the other hand find the subject truly fascinating mostly because I am a self styled intellectual who thinks very highly of himself with a massive stick up his arse (ohh the sarcasm...). Peter Mandelson recently decided to cut the Higher Education budget, this is good because then the make-believe university degrees that are not even worth the paper they are written on will slowly but surely die out. The abolition of the 11+, changing from O-Levels to GCSE's, labelling Polytechnics as Universities, reduction of standards in A-levels, and now the joke degree courses. "Everyone must win and all shall have prizes." In our Alice in Wonderland world everyone is equal and all shall have degrees.

Why? It goes well in hand with the trend that can be seen not only in the UK but in the rest of the world the end of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st were the "Inclusive" centuries were meritocracy became mediocracy and talent became tool. These days, certain campuses seem to get people off the streets to fill up their quotas on questionable courses. There are only a few British academic institutions today which have not become the laughing stock of the world, notably the Russell group. The lefties tend to call them "elitist" often because they were not clever enough to gain admission, most likely why they saw fit to dumb down the entire education sector including the national curriculum (in all fairness a lot of the dumbing down were done under the Major years but he sold us down the drain with the Maastricht treaty as well so you cannot expect hat anything as sublime as education to be defended by him). However there seems to be some light at the end of the tunnel, notably the recent Mandelson ejaculations (though he also figured engineering degrees should be done in two years... They currently take 4 years to complete) and the fact (it is a fact in my book but I cannot back it up with any credible link I am sorry to say, so for now it will be anecdotal evidence of my hypothesis) people now realise what a load of garbage the last 20 years have been in terms of education - call it a generation lost if you will.

This is the domestic side of the issue there is however a foreign footnote as well. As university funding has been allocated on some very dodgy basis lately (this was changed from the previous system) the universities now set their own quotas for foreign students who pay astronomical sums to come to the UK and study. Naturally they universities want them more than home students because they pay more. Simple, quid pro quo. However they set their own quotas which means that the creme de la creme of the British student body will often not get a place at their chosen institution because of financial favouritism exercised by the body in question. Alas this is where numbers enter the equation. But even before we address those numbers lets look at the immigration issue related to higher education. Since the phasing out of embarkation controls in 1994 no Government has ever been able to produce an accurate figure for the number of people who have overstayed their visas, including those who entered on a student visa. Philip Woolas goes on to say that as part of the Government's 10-point plan for delivery, by 2010 over 95 per cent. of non-EEA foreign nationals will be counted in and out of the country, rising to 100 per cent. by 2014. This is part of a sweeping programme of border protection which also includes the global roll-out of fingerprint visas, watch-list checks for all travellers before they arrive or depart from the UK and ID cards for foreign nationals.

Which means -not- in newspeak; they do not have a bloody clue who is here and why.

Regular readers will know that I do not much care for the EU so I will start with those numbers - all data was sourced from UKCISA (it being a government department I would adjust those figured upward by at least a couple of percent due certain pesky Labour civil servants massaging the numbers, as they regularly do to withhold the truth).

Firstly there the number of UK students at UK universities fell from 1.97 million in 2007 to 1.96 million in 2008. That is a decrease of 1%, the first decrease since records began. However the number of overseas students increased by 5%. This broke down to a 6% rise in students from other European Union countries (total of 112,150 in 2008) and a 4% rise in those from non EU countries (total 229,640).

In total there are 341,795 non-UK students at British universities.

You might wonder what they study? Well, the full list is here but there are 8,935 non-UK students studying medicine and dentistry. Now you might not know this but the pressure to study medicine in this country is a best fierce at worst it is a blitzkrieg with the unlucky ones and crappy ones, going into something biological because they were not bright enough to go into medicine. However, the statistic does not brake down how many of those 8,935 are EU students - this is important because they pay the same fees as we do roughly £3,225 a year. Whereas a truly international students pays somewhere around £20,000 for en engineering degree and about £30,000 for a medical degree. But there is a very odd discrepancy here. The cost of medical degree...

Mr. Harvey: To ask the Secretary of State for Health what estimate he has made of the cost of training a (a) doctor, (b) nurse, (c) occupational therapist, (d) physiotherapist and (e) speech and language therapist; and if he will make a statement. [138404]

17 Nov 2000 : Column: 826W

Mr. Denham: In the period between entry to medical school and full registration, it is estimated that training a doctor costs between £200,000 and £250,000. Doctors generally continue training after full registration. As the duration and nature of post-registration training varies greatly and as service and training costs are closely related it is not possible to provide a meaningful estimate of the total cost of training.

The latest year for which figures are available show that in 1999-2000 the national average estimated cost of training a nurse was £11,000 per annum; an occupational therapist £7,000 per annum; a physiotherapist £7,200 per annum and a speech and language therapist £7,000 per annum. These costs are inclusive of tuition, bursary and salary support costs. Most courses are of three years duration.

Which means that there is a lot of money missing for the EU students and International students, studying medicine. Lets make some assumptions to ease the mathematical calculations required to determine how much money is being lost to this set up. Lets assume first that the cost of training a dentist and doctor is the same, in reality the cost of training a doctor is most likely higher but these are, like government figures, to be taken with a pinch of salt.

First lets make an underestimate, lets assume that all the 8,935 students are EU students and are alas on the same tuition fee as the rest of us lucky bunch.

A medical degree is 6 years long and the annual tuition fee is £3,225.

Maths: £3,225 x 6 x 8,935 = £172, 892,250 or roughly 172 million pounds is contributed by the EU students towards the funding of their degree.

The actual cost of training 8,935 doctors is (disregarding inflation and market imperfections)

Maths:

-Overestimate £250,000 x 8,935 = £223,375,000,0 or roughly 2,23 billion pounds.

-Average £225,000 x 8,935 = £201,037,5000,0 or roughly 2 billion pounds.

-Underestimate £200,000 x 8,935 = 178,700,000,0 or roughly 1,78 billion pounds.

Which means that there is a deficit of about 2 billion in the higher education budget because we are training foreign medical personnel who will go back to their own country. This is only for medicine of course, there are 45,515 international students studying engineering which also is a very cost heavy degree. Same story there, this is not an investment the UK is doing by funding their degrees for them because most of them will go home to their own countries anyway, most likely laughing at the supreme stupidity of the British government for being so bloody spineless. Hence, in reality billions upon billions are paid by the British government (and by extension the British taxpayer) for the upkeep of thousands upon thousands of international students who have no plans whatsoever to commit to this country. Even if they did commit to this country there would simply not be enough space or jobs for them to do so.

Now if we on the other hand assume that the 8,935 are all international students and are paying about £30,000 annually for their degree, then the picture is a bit rosier.

Maths: £30,000 x 6 x 8,935 = £160,830,000,0 or roughly 1,6 billion pounds is contributed by International students towards the funding of their degree. Though most are not international most are EU...

Now you like me probably know that this is political no-go waters and this will not be addressed under the Cameron government because it involves taking on the EU, something which he will not do. Simply because he likes it and on the strength of that (or at least the posters with HIM on them) so does the party.