Not quite international

British universities may be forced to cull international student numbers. And if so, they’ll have to knock off the profitable ones, writes John Ross. About ten years ago I went to England with my Spanish girlfriend, who spoke little English and had left her passport at home. Olga didn’t even realise she needed a passport. As a Spaniard, she’d grown used to the borderless world created by the Schengen agreement, which abolished passport controls between most western European countries. Spaniards didn’t need passports to get to France, Germany or Italy, for example. But the UK – then, as now – hadn’t signed up to Shengen. Without a passport, Olga was told, she couldn’t fly. The problem was solved by a sympathetic Madrid Airport official and a fax from England which granted Olga temporary entry. At Heathrow, I joined the European Union citizens’ line in case I was needed to explain the fax. There was no need – the British immigration official barely glanced at it, and Olga was through in seconds. Then I, a native English speaker with an English mother, joined the snaking queue for non-EU aliens. It took about an hour. It was symbolic of the attitude to strangers in Britain. Grudging accommodation of the new European partners. Hurdles for everybody else. Ten years on, the attitude hasn’t changed. But the queues are even longer, including the EU lines. That’s no surprise, because there are lots more EU citizens. Ten countries joined up in 2004 and two more in 2007. But the queues for aliens have grown exponentially, especially during the dawn rush hour of long-haul flight arrivals. They wind around a barn-sized passport control area, barely moving. If you get through in an hour, you’re lucky. Lots of these aliens are tourists with wads of cash to spend in a Britain that needs every penny it can get. But some are migrants, and that seems to make politicians nervous. As in Australia, immigration featured heavily in the UK national election. Prime Minister David Cameron emerged with a mandate to go hard. He quickly slapped down an interim cap, reducing the skilled migrant intake by around 15 per cent, with a permanent cap to apply from April next year. Cameron’s goal is to reduce net migration from hundreds of thousands a year to tens of thousands – replicating figures last seen under John Major’s government – by 2014. The work is already underway. Consultations ended this month on what to do about tier 1 (highly skilled) and tier 2 (skilled worker) migrants. The government’s preferred mechanisms are a ‘pool’ approach for tier 1, with visas going to the elite few who score the most points. A first-come-first-serve approach with limited quarterly intakes would apply to tier 2. At the same time, an advisory group is trying to determine the appropriate permanent caps for both categories. Recommendations are expected some time next month, after the three major parties’ national conferences wind up over the next few weeks. But if Cameron is to meet his 2014 deadline, the government will have to spell out its plans for the biggest category – tier 4, students – sooner rather than later. So commentators also expect some sort of announcement on student visas next month. According to the most recent (and somewhat unreliable) count, the UK takes in some 280,000 international students a year. But when the British higher education community says “international”, it’s actually referring to what Brits call the “third country” nationals – those from outside the EU. This is because EU students are more or less considered domestic. By EU rules, they have to be treated the same as the locals. That means paying the same fees. In fact, in some cases, foreign EU students pay lower fees than their domestic counterparts. In the UK, for fee-paying purposes, nationality is defined by your taxpaying status rather than your passport. So if you or your parents have been working and paying taxes in some non-EU country – Australia, for example – for the last three years or so, you’ll be defined as a non-EU international and charged accordingly. Conversely, if you’re an Australian who’s been working in Britain for at least three years, you qualify for domestic fees. And Scotland – presumably still nursing some 13th century grievance – has jacked up fees for students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland. But foreign EU students pay the same fees as the locals. The EU won’t let the Scots discriminate against other partner nations, but they’re free to discriminate within their own country. But the point is, the UK can’t treat foreign EU students as cash cows. So the differentiation between EU and third country internationals is a very meaningful one, as far as university finance departments are concerned. But not as far as Cameron is concerned. When he talks immigration cuts, he means everybody. Poles and Czechs as well as Pakistanis and Chinese. Around 14 per cent of students in the UK are ‘third country’ internationals paying big bickies. Another 5 or so per cent are EU foreigners. But if the government ends up wanting to cut student numbers, it can’t do anything about the latter group. So any cut would have to come from the big-paying former. Britain’s tertiary education peak groups seem surprisingly relaxed about all this. While there have been rumblings about ensuring quality, no politician has explicitly advocated student cuts. There are plenty of other categories that could be cut. And would the government really shut the door on good students just to meet a fairly arbitrary immigration target? Why jump up and down before we know there’s a problem, the lobby groups reason. But do the maths. While cuts may come from other areas, students are the biggest group. It may be impossible to realise Cameron’s aspirations without touching them. And while no overall cap has so far been identified, a reduction from hundreds to tens of thousands means – by definition – a cut of over 50 per cent, at the very least. UK universities don’t rely on international students quite as much as their Australian counterparts. But they’re still pretty dependent. International students’ fees provide around 10 per cent of their income. How much they’ll provide in the near future is anybody’s guess. But the picture should become a little clearer next month. And also next month, of course, the much anticipated government spending review will outline cuts to most areas of government spending. Cuts of 25 per cent or more are planned, with higher education tipped to be in for a particularly torrid time. Should be a hell of a month. John Ross is travelling in Europe courtesy of a travel award from Universities Australia and the National Press Club.