Yesterday Edinburgh Council put on hold its happy sounding plans for a “friendship agreement” with Kaohsiung, a city in Taiwan. It turns out that this wouldn’t make the Chinese government very happy - and that that might have unpleasant financial side side effects, particularly for Scotland’s cash strapped universities. Do it, said the Chinese Consul General in Scotland, and there could be “serious consequences,” one of which could be the blocking of all visas for Chinese students studying in Scotland. Whoops.
There are 150,000 Chinese students in the UK. Around 9000 of them are in Glasgow and around 6,850 in Edinburgh. They each pay anywhere up to £38,000 a year. It looks like they will stay for now. But the mini saga is a reminder of just how vulnerable UK universities have made themselves by relying so much on foreign students. Column from a few weeks ago here (the vulnerability of UK unis to a slow down in the supply of foreign students is not new news… ).
https://lnkd.in/e_f2ntsq
Monsters exist, but more dangerous are the functionaries, ready to believe and to act without asking questions
4wwhat Taylor would do... very good!