Post

This could be an existential issue for some big name UK universities, some of which are reliant on international fees from EU students. inews.co.uk/news/politic...

If fees for EU student suddenly plunge to home student levels, then those unis lose a big slice of their income – certainly enough to mean yet more job losses and course closures, but possibly enough to just make the whole operation non-viable.

The option being touted instead is to peg EU student fees lower than international fees, so unis don't make a surplus on them, but higher than home students, so they don't make a loss.

That's still a huge loss relative to their current position, unless the demand from EU students rises sufficiently to cancel out the loss.

However, if EU fees genuinely are set at *marginal* cost, then demand can't cancel out the loss: however many EU students you have, the critical loss stays the same; it's just made across a greater number of students.

Meanwhile, if greater youth mobility cuts both ways, home student leaving the UK to study in the EU might make the financial problems of the imminent demographic dip in the UK even worse.

From a purely financial perspective, the outcome that UK unis need to see is: 1) EU fees set at a rate that's high enough to deliver a modest marginal return, but low enough to attract to a lot more EU students And...

That's a knife-edge calculation and we don't have enough data or understanding to predict the elasticity of different price points.

Of course, financials aren't the only factor here. On one hand, greatly increasing EU student numbers would challenge local provision in terms of housing, support etc, and the balance above involves the displacement of UK students by EU ones, which is, to say the least, politically sensitive.

On the other, international students of all kinds are a huge economic, social and cultural boost to the UK and facilitate ongoing soft power and trade benefits.