Just five percent of ‘bright’ overseas students enroll in top ten UK universities

Around one in eight goes to one of the top 24 Russell group universities.

The study said the myth that non-EU students coming to the UK were the ‘brightest and the best’.

According to the Daily Mail,only a small percentage of foreign students go to a top ten university.

“This report lifts the lid on what is really happening in the university sector. Non-EU students are being recruited to prop up the finances of less well-known universities,” Sir Andrew Green,chairman of MigrationWatch said.

“It is time that the strong public interest in immigration control was properly balanced against the self-serving pleading of the universities lobby in the UK which is in denial about the potential impact of foreign students on net migration,” he added.

The MigrationWatch study,based on official figures,estimates that around 34,300 non-EU students entered a top ten university last year,or around five percent of all arrivals.

The study follows comments by a leading academic who suggested international students are being used as ‘cash cows’ by universities.

Last week,Professor Susan Bassnett,former pro vice chancellor at Warwick University,said higher education institutions were blithely accepting foreign students whose English was so poor who would struggle to pass an English GCSE because they were reliant on fees up to £20,000 a year.