Universities in many countries now recruit a large proportion of their students from overseas.

Universities in many countries accept a large number of students from abroad. In my opinion, this is mostly a positive development, although it also creates some difficulties.

The main advantage is financial. Foreign students usually pay much higher fees than local students, and universities use this money to pay teachers, to buy laboratory equipment and to do research. Without this money, many departments would close and local students would have fewer choices.

Another benefit is cultural. When students from thirty countries study in the same class, they learn about different opinions and different ways of working. This is very useful preparation for international companies. Also, when these students return home, they usually keep good relations with the country where they studied, which helps business and politics in the future.

However, there are also problems. In some universities the number of foreign students grew very fast, but the number of rooms in the dormitory and the number of teachers did not grow, so classes became too big. In addition, when a university needs money, sometimes it accepts students whose English is not good enough, and then these students cannot understand the lectures and they fail.

In conclusion, I believe that recruiting international students is a positive development because it brings money and cultural exchange, but universities must control the quality and prepare enough places for everybody.

Universities in many countries now recruit a substantial proportion of their students from overseas. I consider this positive in principle, but the form the trend has taken carries a risk that is rarely acknowledged.

The underlying driver is financial rather than educational. Where domestic tuition is capped by government and public funding has fallen in real terms, international students paying unregulated fees cross-subsidise the entire institution — teaching for local students, libraries, laboratories and a great deal of research. Without that income many departments would simply close, so the presence of overseas students is what sustains the provision that domestic students receive. There are genuine academic benefits too: a classroom drawing on many national experiences produces better discussion, and graduates who return home retain professional and personal links that pay off for decades.

The risk lies in concentration and dependency. When a large share of revenue comes from a small number of countries and a narrow range of courses, a visa change or a diplomatic dispute abroad becomes a budget crisis at home, and universities have no control over either. Financial pressure also distorts admissions: an institution that needs the fee income has an incentive to accept applicants whose language preparation is marginal, which serves neither those students nor their classmates. Growth has frequently outpaced housing, teaching capacity and support services, so the experience deteriorates for everyone.

In conclusion, international recruitment is beneficial and should continue, but its current scale reflects a funding model that has quietly made universities dependent on an income stream they cannot influence.

Discussions of international student recruitment usually proceed as though universities had chosen it for educational reasons. They largely did not. Where governments cap domestic tuition and reduce public funding in real terms, overseas fees become the only unregulated revenue available, and recruitment expands to fill the gap. Seen that way the trend is a consequence of funding policy rather than an academic strategy, and my verdict follows from that: the practice is positive, the dependency it has produced is not.

The benefits are substantial and frequently understated by critics. International fees cross-subsidise almost everything else an institution does — laboratories, libraries, and the teaching that domestic students receive at below cost. In many systems, courses that have no commercial application survive precisely because overseas recruitment underwrites them, which means the students most vocally resented by some domestic commentators are the reason their own degree still exists. The academic gains are real too, and the long-term diplomatic ones are considerable: graduates return home into positions of influence retaining professional ties, a form of soft power no government could buy directly.

What is dangerous is not the students but the exposure. When a large share of income derives from a handful of countries and a narrow band of subjects, a visa rule, a currency movement or a diplomatic quarrel abroad translates immediately into redundancies at home — and universities can influence none of those variables. Worse, the risk is counter-cyclical in the wrong direction: the shocks likeliest to interrupt recruitment are precisely those that also strain public finances, so the fallback fails at the same moment the primary source does.

Dependency also distorts decisions that ought to be academic. An institution whose budget requires a given intake faces a de facto incentive to admit applicants whose language preparation is marginal, and to design courses around what recruits rather than what a discipline requires. This is not a matter of individual dishonesty; it is what happens when admissions and solvency are connected. The result harms the admitted students most, since they arrive underprepared into an environment that has quietly assumed they were ready.

My conclusion, then, is that this is a positive development being carried out under conditions that make it fragile. The remedy is not fewer international students — that would close departments and impoverish the education of everyone else — but a funding settlement that stops treating an unpredictable overseas market as the permanent solution to a domestic political decision about tuition.