Oxford faces growing competition from foreign universities, as figures show a steady increase in UK students opting to study abroad.
Oxford faces growing competition from foreign universities, as figures show a steady increase in UK students opting to study abroad.Interest from British students in US universities has risen dramatically during the last two years, as the College Board, the American association responsible for administering SATs, recorded a 16.4% increase in traffic to their website during the year 2010-11. British visitors represented a striking 95% of this increase.
The College Board told Cherwell that the number of UK students taking the SAT rose by 40% between 2007 and 2011, with a 15% jump reported over the past year. Of particular concern to Oxford is the sudden increase in British applications to Ivy League universities which appears to have taken place over the last two years. The US-UK Fulbright Commission, an international educational exchange programme, has reported that between 2010 and 2011 alone UK applications to Yale increased by 23%, applications to Harvard increased by 45%, and those to the University of Pennsylvania increased by 50%.
Oxford University has expressed worries about losing talented applicants to foreign institutions. A spokesperson this week pointed out Oxford’s comparative weakness with regards to funding at Oxford, 58% of new doctoral students entering in 2010 had scholarship funding, but at Master’s level, this drops to 18%. This compares favourably with the UK as a whole, but is nowhere near the funding levels offered by international peer institutions.”
In his most recent annual oration, Oxford’s Vice-Chancellor, Professor Andrew Hamilton, warned that financial issues were driving more and more bright UK students, especially graduates, to study abroad. He claimed, “There are sadly too many examples of Oxford losing bright graduate students to overseas universities because of the funding gap. It is the single biggest reason why those to whom we make offers turn us down.”
The phenomenon may also have been partly driven by outreach work from a number of US institutions. A spokesperson for Harvard commented, “Over the past half dozen years, the Harvard Club of the UK has been making a concerted effort to get the word out to UK students from all backgrounds and all educational sectors about admissions and financial aid possibilities.”
Nor are American universities the only threat to UK institutions. British students are also choosing to study in Europe, where the number of UK applications has seen a sharp upturn in recent years. Maastricht University in Holland, where it is possible to study entire degrees in English, is particularly keen to encourage UK applications: it recently sought entry to UCAS and labels itself “the most international university in the Netherlands”.
There are eight times more UK undergraduates studying at Maastricht than five years ago, and numbers are set to increase more dramatically. A spokesperson for the university told Cherwell, “We had 491 applications from British students for our coming academic year. In the same week last year we had 265 applications, so the number of applications to Studielink (the Dutch equivalent of UCAS) has almost doubled.”
Many British students who consider studying abroad cite the range and breadth of subjects that it is possible to study at overseas universities as a significant incentive. A second year student at the University of Pennsylvania who turned down an offer from Oxford gave his reasons for choosing the US over Britain, commenting, “It wasn’t an easy choice to leave the UK in order to study in the US, but for me, one of the major deciding factors in choosing America over British universities was the academic flexibility I would have access to.“Even after choosing one of the broader courses in England, PPE, I would not have had the opportunity to fulfil all my academic interests as I do now: I still get to study economics and political philosophy, but I can also continue my study of maths, statistics and languages.”
Claire Gianotti, a visiting student from Brown currently studying at St Anne’s, also praised the breadth of subjects studied, arguing, “It makes for a very interdisciplinary atmosphere – a class would consist of students from all different background and disciplines. Once in a Comparative Literature class we were discussing stream of consciousness in Faulkner, and there were students majoring in the Cognitive and Neurological Sciences that had really interesting contributions to make, and everyone benefits from that kind of diversity.”
Hester Bartelsman, a first year at Amsterdam University College, made a similar observation about European universities, saying, “I love love love studying a broad range of subjects. I and many others at AUC don’t really know what we want to study after this, so it is also necessary to be able to choose the next step.”Theresa Bullock, a first year at Maastricht, argued that her job prospects might be better than her counterparts at UK universities. She argued, “In Brussels, Maastricht graduates are well sought after, over those coming from good universities in the UK, and now many more employers both across Europe and internationally are looking for graduates with the qualities Maastricht graduates have.”
Financial concerns clearly play a large part in students’ decisions. European fees are typically much smaller than those for UK universities: in Germany there are no tuition fees at all, and even the highest fees for EU students studying in Holland are significantly less than £9,000. The huge endowments of many American universities, which dwarf those of British institutions (Harvard’s stands at around £20 billion compared to Oxford’s £3.8 billion), mean that more financial support is often available to gifted students.
[mm-hide-text]%%IMG_ORIGINAL%%5268%%[/mm-hide-text]
A Harvard spokesperson commented, “Given the university’s very strong financial aid program, most UK students from low and middle incomes will likely pay no more to send their students to Harvard than to a UK university, if you include meals and accommodation in addition to tuition fees.“Harvard has a policy of ‘zero contribution’ from families with normal assets making $65,000 or less annually. Families with incomes up to $150,000 will pay from zero to 10 percent of their income, depending on individual family circumstances.”Emily Jones, a first year British student studying at Amsterdam said that financial concerns influenced her decision to study abroad, stating, “I guess it started with my mum suggesting that I look at studying abroad because of the fee rise.”
Jones claimed that studying abroad is conducive to a superior undergraduate experience. She said, “I feel more connected to the rest of Europe – I actually feel like I’ve matured a lot because of all the different opinions that I’m hearing all the time.”She also noted that the social life was markedly different, adding, “I think there’s a lot less pressure here to go crazy and get stupid – people are a lot more relaxed. When I visit friends in England or compare it to going out in my home town people seem to be actually enjoying themselves rather than getting into fights or throwing up on the street.”
Oxford seems confident that it will survive increased foreign competition, with a spokesperson saying, “An Oxford degree remains exceptional value by any measure. It is one of the best educations available in the world. In the recent admissions round both UK and international applicants were as strong as ever.”
