Xenophobic Britain Drives Foreign Students Away

Foreign students are being deterred from courses at British universities because of “public paranoia” over immigration, leading vice-chancellors have warned.

 A culture of hostility towards international students has been allowed to build up as a result of the Coalition’s drive to cut levels of net migration, it was claimed.

One university leader suggested that Britain had a “xenophobic population”.

The comments follow a Government pledge to cut net migration – the difference between the number of people emigrating and the number of new arrivals – to the “tens of thousands” by 2015.

Speaking at the Universities UK annual conference, Prof Quintin McKellar, vice-chancellor of Hertfordshire University, raised the issue of immigration with Vince Cable, the Business Secretary.

He said: “We do have an issue not just within universities but in the whole of the United Kingdom in terms of having essentially quite a xenophobic population.”

Mr Cable admitted that immigration was a “pretty toxic issue”.

Recent figures showed that levels had risen at the end of last year, with net migration standing at 176,000 in the 12 months to the end of December – an increase of 23,000 compared with data published three months earlier.

Universities fear the pledge can only be met by targeting legitimate foreign students who are currently included in the data.

Prof Sir Christopher Snowden, president of Universities UK, the vice-chancellors' group, said that foreign students were “vital” to the UK, contributing around £17 billion to the economy.

Addressing the organisation’s annual conference in Leicester, he said students from outside Europe had been used as a “political football”.

“We need to continue to get the wider UK government and public to recognise our international students as being the next generation of potential politicians and business leaders, on which this country will depend for its commerce, rather than as 'immigrants' and a statistic to be used as a political football,” he said.

He added: “As we approach the election, we can probably expect more discussion about visas and the likelihood of proposals for further restrictions, reflecting the public paranoia over immigration.

“We have got some powerful advocates at the Cabinet table, in business and elsewhere in public life, but we should not underestimate the public's sympathy for the more draconian policies that some senior politicians advocate.”

The Government has already launched a high-profile drive to prevent students taking places at “bogus” colleges in an attempt to gain access to the UK.

Earlier this year, a group of 40 Conservative MPs in marginal seats published a pamphlet urging a cap on foreign students at all but the very best universities, saying: “We must not forget that they are also consumers of housing, the NHS, transport and other national infrastructure”.

The Government is now presenting foreign students as a sub-set within the immigration figures but has stopped short of pulling them out of the data altogether.

However, Sir Christopher, who is also vice-chancellor of Surrey University, said politicians had “increased the anxiety amongst the public with respect to students because of this sort of monologue we had a couple of years ago that so many students were here on what was described as sham courses”.

Dealing with claims of xenophobia Mr Cable said: "It's absolutely right that the Government deals with that and is seen to deal with it. It's absolutely crucial.

"But at the same time there are a lot of people who come into the country who add value, considerable value, and it isn't just overseas students."

Prof McKellar said: “I think the main problem of course is that as far as politicians are concerned, immigration is a critical issue in terms of their ability to be re-elected.”