Bis research paper number 128 The wider benefits of international higher education in the uk

6.4 The UK as a destination for international students 
Future alumni streams and education exports, and the wider benefits these prompt, 
depend on the UK continuing to be an attractive and welcoming destination for 
international students. The alumni interviewed related a variety of motivations for choosing 
the UK for their international HE, ranging from educational (chiefly familiarity with or 
concordance of qualifications, reputation of institution or perceptions of learning style, 
including the UK’s distinctive Masters course structure and research-only doctoral 
programmes) to cultural or social reasons. The UK had been perceived by many as a safe 
environment, both on campus and more generally, in comparison with perceptions of 
certain competitors. Others made judgement more pragmatically or economically, based 
on relative fee levels and especially the availability of 1-year Masters courses. 
As alumni reflecting on their student experience, graduates’ responses were almost 
unequivocally positive and this underpinned their recommendations of the UK as an HE 
destination to others. These positive views were based partly on perceptions that their 
earlier motivations had been reasonably well founded, and on other personal experiences 
too. Most had felt welcomed in the UK, not only within HE but also within the country itself. 
Many expressed admiration for the tolerance within UK society, and some that previous 
fears (of being unwelcome foreigners, or discriminated against) had not been borne out. 
Added to these values were their reflections on a rather distinctive pedagogy within UK 
education, inviting discussion and challenge, which enabled them to grow personally and 
become capable of greater learning, as well as the sheer cosmopolitanism of their 
experience. Collectively these factors instilled in the alumni strong bonds to the UK. 
 6.5 Cosmopolitanism (and integration) 
‘Come to the UK and meet the world’ could be a potential promotional strap line for UK 
HE, based on the perceived benefit of cosmopolitanism on which alumni reflected very 
positively. As indicated in the previous chapter, the majority of alumni stated that there had 
been many different nationalities on their course, and within the HEI student body. They 
had universally considered that this was a positive feature of their experience, even those 
who had restricted themselves somewhat in the range of their social interactions. 
Alumni of Masters courses especially reported a wide variety of nationalities in their course 
groups, although sometimes this could impact on the extent to which they interacted with 
UK students. Certainly some alumni articulated powerfully how they felt transformed 
personally in learning to engage with those of different nationalities and cultures, and to 
understand and tolerate differences. In gaining this intercultural sensitivity, which they 
believed would help them greatly in future international work and relations (and is a known 
global employability benefit, CBI 2011), a few went so far as to admit this involved 
overcoming previously held prejudices. 
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The Wider Benefits of International Higher Education in the UK 
While it is unlikely that this cosmopolitanism is unique to UK HE, it may be that the UK’s 
position within international HE has led to it being more strongly established here and/or to 
a greater extent than in competitor host countries such as the USA or Australia. Some 
statistical research could valuably be attempted to determine whether numerical evidence 
demonstrates this to be a unique aspect of the UK offer. This would require analysis at a 
very granular level (i.e. at institutional or preferably course level, rather than national) as 
the potential benefit occurs at that local level.