Adam Smith Institute

Europe's favourite think tank website
  • Narrow screen resolution
  • Wide screen resolution
  • Decrease font size
  • Default font size
  • Increase font size
Those who can, do... Print E-mail
Written by Tim Worstall   
Thursday, 14 February 2008

...Those who can't, teach.

Sir Roderick Floud, former vice-president of the European University Association, said the UK was a clear market leader in higher education in Europe, which by 2010 would offer a potential market of one billion people as a result of the Bologna Agreement, designed to unify higher education systems across the continent.

"I find it completely extraordinary and short-sighted that British universities are so well represented in recruitment terms in south Asia and the Far East, and so badly represented in the rest of Europe," Floud told the Guardian's Higher Education summit in London.

As Sir Roderick recently (March 2006) retired as President of London Metropolitan University, his surprise is. umm, surprising. The reason universities try to recruit overseas students is because they can charge them lots of money for attending their elite insitutions. Domestically sourced students have their charges capped...and one part of the delights of the European Union is that students from other parts of the EU are to be treated as domesticaly sourced. Thus they can only be charged the (c.) £3,100 a year that a Brit would pay while someone from South Asia or the Far East might pay £11,000 or so.

These fees from overseas students have in fact been the lifeblood of the entire sector for some years now: possibly a third of the entire fee income of the whole higher education sector. This isn't extraordinary nor is it short-sighted: it's simple economic rationality.

A market of one billion people in a population of just under 500 million also looks a bit of a stretch.

So does the phrase finish with "those who can't teach, administrate"? 

 

Comments (0)Add Comment

Write comment
This content has been locked. You can no longer post any comment.

busy
 

About the ASI

The Adam Smith Institute is the UK's leading innovator of free-market economic and social policies. Politically independent and non-profit, the Institute promotes its ideas through reports, briefings, events, media appearances, and its website and blog. For further information, click here.

Join our email list

Keep up-to-date with the latest events, reports and information from the Adam Smith Institute by joining our fortnightly email list. It's free and you can unsubscribe at any point. Just enter your email address here: 


Support the ASI

Enter Amount: