Britain’s top universities are paying middlemen to recruit lucrative overseas students on far lower grades than those required of UK applicants, an undercover investigation has revealed.
Foreign students can buy their way on to highly competitive degree courses with as little as a handful of C grades at GCSE. The courses require British students to have A or A* grades at A-level.
Representatives of the elite Russell Group universities were secretly filmed discussing the “back door” routes used to recruit overseas students, who pay much higher fees than their UK counterparts.
One recruitment official representing four Russell Group universities laughed as he told undercover reporters: “If you can take the lift, why go through the hardest route?”
He added: “International [students] pay more money and the [universities] will receive almost double, so they give leeway for international students.” He claimed the universities did not publicise the schemes in the UK because British students “would not accept it”. He explained: “It’s not something they want to tell you, but it’s the truth.”
Advertisement
The “back door” routes are so lucrative that top universities are paying tens of millions of pounds a year to agents and private companies to hunt out wealthy students. Some of these businesses operate offices and run courses on university campuses, and their bosses are paid more than most vice-chancellors. The agents typically take about 20 per cent of the fees paid by a first-year student.
Foreign students pay up to £38,000 in tuition fees, which are capped at £9,250 for UK students. In the decade before the pandemic, the number of UK students being accepted by the top universities dropped significantly, while admissions of overseas students escalated rapidly.
Demand for lucrative foreign students is so great that universities advertise their courses in the Middle East, Africa and Asia and use recruitment agencies.
• Watch the undercover film: cash for places exposed
There are 15 Russell Group universities that offer special one-year pathway courses that allow overseas students to gain access to undergraduate degrees with far lower A-level or GCSE grades than the normal requirements. They are: Durham, Bristol, Exeter, Warwick, Nottingham, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Liverpool, Cardiff, Sheffield, Birmingham, Southampton, Queen Mary University of London and Queen’s University Belfast.
Advertisement
The Sunday Times investigation discovered that overseas students wishing to study an economics degree using one of the pathways needed grades of CCC at Bristol; CCD at Durham; DDE at Exeter; DDE at Newcastle; and just a single D at Leeds. Yet the same universities’ A-level entry requirements for UK students is A*AA or AAA. All five universities also accept younger overseas students, who have not taken A-levels, with just five C or B grades at GCSE.
The special pathways — which are called International Foundation and International Year One — purport to provide an extra year of tuition after school to help students catch up with their UK counterparts.
International Foundation is a one-year course at the end of which students are moved on to the university’s full undergraduate course. Most of the universities allow overseas students to start studying the pathway course aged 16 or 17.
On International Year One, students take the course as an alternative to the degree’s first year before moving straight into year two of the undergraduate programme. Neither of the two pathways is available to British students.
Students on the pathways have to pass exams at the end of the year before joining the undergraduate degrees. However, the universities’ recruitment officials admitted that the exams were so easy that passing was a formality.
Advertisement
Another university student recruiter told the undercover reporters that the use of special pathways by overseas students was “starting to go crazy”. He said: “The [normal] direct entry is a bit tricky in the UK … unless you are an A student. It is like a back door to be able to enter these universities.”
A third recruitment official said at least 30 per cent of foreign students entering UK universities were using the back-door routes, which equates to more than 30,000 a year.
There are no official figures on how many students use the back-door routes. For the pathways, foreign students typically apply direct to the university or the private companies running the courses rather than through the official Ucas application procedure.
Sheffield University initially said 10,200 foreign students have gone directly into its degree courses from the special pathways in the past three years. However, it subsequently said it had supplied inaccurate figures, and the true number was 2,439. Only one other university has disclosed the number of students entering its degree courses by these routes. The rest declined our request to disclose the figures.
Cardiff claimed the recruitment of overseas students was highly competitive and releasing its pathway figures would damage its “commercial interests”.
Advertisement
Analysis of degree results shows that students from outside the EU have been performing far worse than UK students: they are more than twice as likely to receive a lower second or third-class degree.
Professor Geoffrey Alderman, visiting fellow of the Oxford Centre for Higher Education Policy Studies, said some lecturers had had to pitch teaching at a lower level because foreign students were not able to cope with the normal teaching provided on a degree. “Academics have to gear their teaching towards their student body, and the teaching can sometimes become rote learning. The British students are just expected to sink or swim,” he said.
One lecturer from a London university, speaking anonymously, said the poor English of some overseas students was affecting teaching: “They might struggle to keep up on the courses, especially with the written work, and this can mean more work for me and a slower pace for the rest of the students in the class.”
A recruitment official who acts for seven Russell Group universities said the International Year One course was 70 to 80 per cent easier to pass than the normal first year of a degree. Another agent said many overseas pupils at British private boarding schools were taking advantage of the special pathways, which were not open to their UK schoolmates sitting next to them in lessons.
This month an internal memo from York University revealed it would start admitting some overseas undergraduate applicants with BBC grades at A-level, whereas many UK applicants would have to achieve AAA.
Advertisement
In Scotland universities have protected the number of places available to home students, who pay no tuition fees. But last week the Scottish government admitted that financial pressures might force it to reduce this cap by 1,200 and allow in more fee-paying students from outside the country.
Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said: “It is wrong and unfair for universities to allow overseas students with far lower entry qualifications to squeeze out UK students. Acting in this way risks damaging the reputation of Britain’s great higher education sector and unfairly disadvantaging teenagers who aspire to study at their own country’s world-leading universities.”
‘You don’t have to worry about how difficult the exam is’
In the heart of the Exeter University campus a large group of mainly east Asian students had assembled on a concrete concourse, dressed in mortar boards and gowns, as they waited for their graduation.
Passing by were two parents on their way to meet the university admissions staff. They hoped that one day their children might follow in the footsteps of these graduates.
But the parents had a problem: their children, both of whom were foreign nationals and wanted to study business at Exeter, were not the type of student that is normally accepted on to this course. One had CCD grades at A-level; the other teenager was still doing their GCSEs. The normal entry requirement for Exeter’s business school, which is ranked among the best in Britain, is AAB.
Nonetheless, the parents were told that their children could both secure places at Exeter because of special pathway courses open to only foreign students. Despite their grades, they could take the course, and within a year both could be studying for a degree at the university.
“I think, generally speaking, you don’t have to worry too much about how difficult it is. We do have these successful progression rates,” one staff member said. What the staff did not know was that the two parents were undercover reporters for The Sunday Times.
They had discovered that thousands of foreign students with poor academic grades are obtaining places at some of Britain’s top universities. These institutions are paying middle men to recruit wealthy foreign students on to two types of “pathway” courses which give privileged access to highly competitive degree courses.
Overseas students can apply with English or the equivalent foreign qualifications and the requirements for both are much lower via the pathways.
According to the Higher Education Statistics Agency, overseas students take a third of all UK university places — the number increased from 469,000 to 689,000 between 2018 and 2022.
This trend was particularly pronounced at the Russell Group universities. In the decade before the pandemic, they boosted their numbers of lucrative foreign entrants by 21,000 while the number of UK entrants fell by 15,000.
This contributed to the biggest rejection rate of domestic applicants yet recorded in 2022, with four out of ten UK candidates turned away.
Many of Britain’s universities are in financial crisis. They are heavily dependent on tuition fees, which account for half their funding. But tuition fees for UK students have risen by only £250 since David Cameron’s government raised the cap to £9,000 a year in 2012.
But their costs have soared because of energy bill rises, inflation-fuelled cost increases and compensation for students affected by lecturers’ strikes over pay and pensions. The universities have attempted to fill the gap by luring foreign students. There is no cap on tuition fees for overseas students.
Demand from UK students for places at prestigious British universities is high, allowing them to push grade requirements higher. At the same time, competition for the pool of wealthy overseas students has grown.
So universities began marketing courses in the Middle East, Africa and Asia, sending representatives to education fairs across the globe, as well as to elite boarding schools, where they boast of the rich heritage and academic success of British institutions.
They use recruitment agencies to compete for these lucrative students and offer a new way in, outside the Ucas application route — and with far lower entry requirements.
To be classed as an overseas student, an applicant typically need show only that they have not been continuously resident in the UK for three years. Attending a British school during that period does not bar them from qualifying for foreign status.
The undercover reporters, posing as parents of overseas students who had been educated at a top UK private boarding school, held meetings with representatives handling recruitment at several Russell Group universities.
Exeter’s admissions staff advised them to speak to Into — a private company that claims to have helped more than 150,000 students across the world achieve degrees and made £64 million from its UK student recruitment business alone in 2022.
The Brighton-based firm pockets tuition fees for the pathway year before the students graduate to the university’s degree course. Last year its highest-paid director earned £414,000; the average pay of a Russell Group university vice-chancellor in 2021 was £413,000.
Into has an exclusive partnership with Exeter University to offer pathways. Students are taught from a modern office block on campus that has “Into University of Exeter” emblazoned on the wall at its entrance. Its employees have University of Exeter lanyards around their necks and use official university email addresses. The students mingle with the rest of the campus population.
Entry to Exeter is extremely competitive — there are 40,000 applications for just 6,000 undergraduate places. It is ranked 11th in the country by The Sunday Times Good University Guide.
After being given a tour of the business school, the undercover reporters chatted over coffee in the Into canteen with Chloe Sully, the company’s marketing executive, and Mia Tian, its international student recruitment manager.
Sully had been encouraging when the reporters had explained that they wanted their sons to study at Exeter’s business school. Applying through the Ucas system, the students would need AAB at A-level, she said. But neither of the children had those grades, so Sully explained there was another route in.
The older child was eligible for Into’s International Year One business economics programme, which is taught in its campus building. To get on to this course they would need to apply directly to Into, not through Ucas, which meant there would be no external record of their entry to the university via the special pathway.
After one year the student would go straight into the second year of Exeter’s standard business school economics degree.
Sully said: “So your son that’s studying A-levels — to get on to the [International Year One] programme it would be two Cs and a D.” Tian added: “He’s basically ticked everything we need for academic entry requirements.”
Exeter is not alone in offering this route. International Year One programmes have been increasing in popularity over the past five years. More than 40 UK universities accept students from the programmes into the second year of degree courses. They include Russell Group universities such as Leeds, Newcastle, Cardiff, Queen’s University Belfast and Sheffield.
Exeter admits 250 foreign students a year in this way, according to Tian. Some of the students are referred to the company after failing to obtain the necessary grades in the Ucas system. “We work really closely with the international team at the University of Exeter,” Sully explained. “If a student doesn’t quite meet the [required standard of English language] or the total requirements etc, they will refer them on to us.”
Tian explained that while “CCD [is] a lot lower than their normal requirements — AAB”, the Into students would be given extra teaching support not available to normal undergraduates.
The exams appeared to be a formality. “We do have a very high progression rate for International Year One … Last year for certain countries it was 100 per cent. Overall it was 93 per cent,” she said.
Exeter and Into offer a second pathway for overseas students, called an International Foundation course. It was set up to help overseas students transition into the UK higher education system by allowing them to pay for an extra year of study after school and improve their language skills before they start their degree. But in many cases students are not required to have studied to A-level standard or to have finished school. One of the reporters explained to the Into representatives at Exeter that their son was not expected to get particularly good GCSE grades — could he still get in?
Tian said: “Yeah, that will be fine.” She explained that the 16-year old boy would be offered a place on Exeter’s £20,000-a-year foundation course as long he had a minimum of five Bs and at least a C in maths at GCSE. After one year he would become an undergraduate at the business school at the age of 17. Meanwhile his friends at his UK boarding school would still be only halfway through their two-year A-level course studying hard for the grades required to get into Exeter through the front door.
There was an exam to pass at the end of the foundation course, but Tian said: “I think, generally speaking, you don’t have to worry too much about how difficult it is. We do have these successful progression rates.”
Last week Exeter University issued a statement that said all its applicants “whether from the UK or abroad, are considered on merit and equally when they apply to study.” It added: “All offers are competitively set to attract the very best students from across the world.”
Into also has a partnership running an International Foundation programme with Manchester University, which is 23rd in The Sunday Times Good University Guide and had 92,000 applications for its 9,600 undergraduate degree places.
About 500 students a year are said to be accepted on to the Foundation programme, more than 40 per cent of them from China.
‘There is no competition’
Last month the reporters entered Into’s imposing Victorian office and classroom complex in Manchester’s city centre just a few hundred metres away from the university’s main lecture halls. They met Jane He, the company’s Manchester international recruitment manager, who took them along brightly coloured corridors decorated with photographs of successful overseas students.
Sitting with the undercover reporters on plastic chairs in the students’ breakout room, He explained that the centre supplied foreign students to the universities of Durham, Bristol, Leeds and Sheffield as well as Manchester. Overseas students wishing to enter the foundation course for Manchester’s business school need a minimum of three Bs at A-level, whereas home students are required to achieve three As. If they pass the course they will receive a “guaranteed conditional offer” reserving a place at the business school.
“It is pretty simple: it means there is no competition between these students and external students. It’s like the position has been secured,” she said.
The foundation course was easier than A-levels, particularly for those who spoke English, and 90 per cent passed, she said. “The knowledge they are learning is very basic.”
About a dozen students a year study an International Year One course that prepares them for direct entry into the second year of undergraduate courses at Bristol, Leeds or Sheffield, she explained. The grade requirement is two Ds at A-level.
In a statement last week Into said: “Our programmes are intensive and high quality, and meet all UK requirements.”
Manchester University said it was “strongly committed to fair admissions” and applied “the same academic entry requirements to both domestic and international applicants”. Manchester and Exeter said their pathway courses were intended for overseas students with a year less of schooling than UK students.
‘The universities want to get more money’
As well as the firms that run courses for the universities, a burgeoning industry of recruitment agents has sprung up in recent years, scouring the world for fresh supplies of overseas students. About half of foreign students at UK universities are recruited by agents.
The undercover reporters visited one of the UK’s leading student recruitment agencies, Amber Education, at its offices in Regent Street, central London, last month. The company, owned by a Hong Kong businessman, is the official agent for Nottingham, York, Exeter and Durham and sends 2,000 mainly Chinese students a year to British universities, including several hundred via the international pathways.
The reporters were greeted warmly by Amber’s education officer, Sam Lam, a veteran with a vast knowledge of the student recruitment business.
Lam was in no doubt about why overseas students were offered much lower grades. “International [students] pay more money and the school [university] will receive almost double, so they give leeway for international students,” he said.
Lam had revealed on the phone that many wealthy foreign nationals studying at elite UK private boarding schools used the pathways route to get on to good degree courses, rather than going through Ucas. He claimed to send up to 80 such students to the Russell Group’s pathways each year. He added: “If you can take the lift, why go through the hardest route?”
The pathways are easy, he said. “For most coursework you get 50 per cent just for handing it in. You turn up, you do the bare minimum. That’s the pass mark.”
So why were the courses not publicised in the UK? “They wouldn’t advertise with UK local students; they wouldn’t put [up] posters. [The UK students] wouldn’t accept it,” Lam replied.
“They would not be qualified because they’re home students. That is a different queue … It’s not something they want to tell you, but it’s the truth.”
Last week, representatives for Amber Education said Lam had given inaccurate figures for the number of students the company was assisting, but did not provide alternative figures. They added that the company gives advice to students on “their potential prospects of being accepted to universities through the official pathways, taking into account the applicable requirements of the universities and the student’s situation and background”. It said students are required to meet the entrance requirements set by the universities.
The undercover reporters held a video call with Mahmoud Gouda, a recruitment agent based in Cairo who works for the Manchester-based recruitment agency Edvoy, which he claimed sent 4,500 students from the Middle East and India to British universities last year.
He said the use of special pathways by overseas students was “starting to go crazy” and estimated that 60 per cent of his company’s recruits were opting for International Foundation courses. “It is like a back door to be able to enter these universities,” he said. “The direct entry is a bit tricky in the UK … unless you are an A* student.”
Another recruitment agent, Mohamed Abdeltawab, described how his company had put 8,000 students through International Foundation courses in recent years and 97 per cent of them had progressed to UK universities.
He is the general manager of the Egyptian-owned British Educational Services Group, which recruits foreign students for Durham and Sheffield.
He said: “The [pathways] are only for international students. British students don’t have this kind of privilege.”
The reporter asked why the universities offered the pathway option for international students: was it “because they want to get more money”?
Abdeltawab replied: “Exactly. And to be honest with you … this is the main reason.”
Bristol University has outsourced recruitment for the International Foundation programme it runs to the US firm Kaplan, part of a sprawling international education group with revenues of more than $1 billion.
It has helped the university expand the annual number of foundation students from 150 to 450 over five years — almost a quarter of them are aged 16 and 17, the reporters were told. Bristol attracted more than 60,000 applicants for just 6,100 places in 2022.
British students need A*AA at A-level for admission to its undergraduate economics course. But the undercover reporters found that an overseas student could enrol on its one-year foundation course and receive an offer of a place on the same economics course with just three Cs at A-level — or even five Bs at GCSE.
‘It’s very easy for the students … I never see them fail’
Another of the companies running foundation courses at universities is Study Group, which started as a language school in Brighton more than 30 years ago and claims to be the largest provider of international students to higher education institutions, making £119 million in revenues in 2022.
After the undercover reporters contacted the admissions team at Durham, ranked seventh in The Sunday Times Good University Guide, to inquire about its International Foundation course, they were redirected to a middleman in Singapore called Alan Fu, a student enrolment adviser for Study Group.
In a video call interview Fu explained that his company was accepting hundreds of students a year for Durham’s International Foundation course. The £25,000-a-year course, he said, was for overseas students who did not have the grades to get in through the direct Ucas route.
Fu said: “If they didn’t really do well in their study but they still want to study in good universities, we give the student a second chance.” He added: “Some of the families, they rather prefer to spend some money to have a better chance to go into the good degree.”
Durham receives 34,000 Ucas applications a year for just 4,700 degree places. For courses such as economics, UK students need an A* and two As in their A-levels.
But to gain access to the business or economics degree courses using the foundation route, Fu said overseas students would need just two Cs and a D. “So it is very easy for them,” he said. “After they complete the foundation course they can progress to degree study. So they don’t have to really get triple A. It’s really, really hard for students to get a triple A compared to a foundation course.”
And Fu admitted that even a younger student with just five Cs at GCSEs would be accepted on to the pathway. For overseas students with good English, the course’s pass rate was 100 per cent, he said. “I’ve got students from Australia; I’ve got students from Canada. I never see them fail.”
Last week, Study Group declined to comment. Durham University said it was incorrect to claim that there was a 100 per cent International Foundation pass rate for fluent English speakers, and denied that there was any lowering of entry requirements for international students.
Manchester, Warwick, Southampton and Birmingham universities said students are allowed to pass from their International Foundation courses to their degree programmes only if they reach the same level of academic achievement required for normal entry.
In a joint statement the Russell Group universities said: “International students are an important part of our student body, bringing diverse perspectives that enrich the learning environment. Revenue from international students is reinvested into high-quality teaching and learning to benefit all students.”
They said many international education systems were not aligned with the UK, meaning students could be accepted with a range of qualifications.
The group added: “Given the variety of starting points, foundation programmes have long proved a useful pathway to bridge the gap between different education systems.” It said several universities provided similar pathways for UK students with “under-represented backgrounds”.
