Stakeholders are accusing the government of treating migrants to the UK, including international students, as “cash cows” amid lofty health surcharge fee increases and the promise of visa fee rises. 

Along with changes to foundation courses to cut down on “rip-off” programs, UK PM Rishi Sunak announced that migrant fees would be increased “significantly” to raise over £1 billion to fund public sector pay rises. 

It comes after strikes have plagued the country for the last year, including by nurses, doctors and teachers. 

Students wanting to study in the UK will be expected to pay a discounted NHS surcharge fee – or Immigration Health Surcharge – of £776 a year, instead of the previous discounted £470. The rise is equivalent to a 65% increase. 

Visa fees will also be going up, with figures being reported at around 15% for migrants, but 20% for students – no official figure has been released. 

“This news will be very disappointing to the international students and global talent that choose to live, work and study in the UK – they make an invaluable contribution to our universities and to our communities,” Jamie Arrowsmith, chief executive of Universities UK International, told The PIE News in a statement. 

“The UK is already perceived as having high immigration costs relative to other nations. Increasing these further, as other countries redouble their efforts to attract more international students, can only serve to reinforce that perception,” he continued. 

Teeroumanee Nadan, who is an expert in internationalisation and has been watching the developing situation with international students in the UK, agreed that the competition would become more difficult. 

“Having to rely on international students to cover internal budgeting will further damage the UK’s reputation both in the educational sector and in the global economy.

“Australia provided substantial financial aid and support to international students during Covid – unlike the UK – and Canada has always been loud and clear about how open it is to international talent. 

“Perhaps this will be reflected in an increase of foreign students going to other countries”

“The UK has already closed itself off with Brexit and closing international prospects in the education sector will create a series of time bombs that will explode after the 2025 elections – and be someone else’s problem,” she told The PIE.

Those who would indirectly be receiving the so-called benefit of the increase – public sector workers – have called out the government’s policy, with migrant charity Praxis accusing the government of using migrants as “cash cows” and one Serbian lecturer at Cardiff University telling the Guardian it is “borderline racist”.

The union representing junior doctors, who are at the centre of the recent strike action, called the move “immoral and divisive”. 

“The NHS surcharge goes against the founding principles of the NHS as a universal service, free at the point of need,” Doctors in Unite said in a statement. 

Nadan called the move to increase the fees “ironic”, and also pointed out that international students have already been penalised in the UK this year, with a ban on dependants on postgraduate taught programs being introduced. 

“Bearing in mind that the highest numbers of international students are from India and China, this will come in handy for the short term to appease tensions among the general public.

“But with India now being the fifth largest economy, and China already at number two, economically this is not well thought through.” 

Despite the issues surrounding the IHS fees, one agent said he was confident it wouldn’t impact the market. 

“The IHS fee, when put together along with the other fees, in reality is not a big issue [for students]”, Noor Hasan Mahmud, country manager Bangladesh for TCL Global, told The PIE. 

“Having to rely on international students to cover internal budgeting will further damage the UK’s reputation”

Despite this reassurance, some students still believe the issue will deter others from joining them. 

“Given the role that legal migrants play in the economy in general and in specific sectors – like health – in particular, the percentage of the increase seems a bit excessive to me,” said Alan Zamayoa, a Mexican MsC candidate at a British university, speaking to The PIE. 

Zamayoa explained that the move seemed extremely political – i.e, the Conservative party trying to appeal to its base on immigration while trying to prevent “further loss of potential votes with a tax increase in other sectors”. 

“Since we foreign students tend to apply for programs in more than one country, perhaps this will be reflected in an increase of more foreign students to other countries,” he continued, echoing Nadan’s reservations. 

“Pursuing a degree abroad is not cheap, so if you’re going to part with a significant amount of money, at least you’d want to go somewhere you’re getting a good education and tools for what you’re paying,” Zamayoa noted.

“Our reputation as a welcoming destination for international students, and the government’s claims to want a competitive immigration system for researchers and innovators are severely tested by these announcements,” Arrowsmith added.

The post Overseas students “treated as cash cows” in UK appeared first on The PIE News.

The UK government has announced a “crackdown” on “poor-quality” degrees, but some are calling the plans “shortsighted” while others point out implications for international students and creative arts graduates.

Higher education regulator in England, the Office for Students, will be asked to limit the number of students universities can recruit onto courses that are failing to deliver “good outcomes” for students, the UK government has announced.

“The UK is home to some of the best universities in the world and studying for a degree can be immensely rewarding,” said UK prime minister Rishi Sunak.

“But too many young people are being sold a false dream and end up doing a poor-quality course at the taxpayers’ expense that doesn’t offer the prospect of a decent job at the end of it.”

Minimum performance thresholds on course continuation, progression and completion are already in place and regulated by the OfS.

“The vast majority of courses exceed these thresholds, so any measures by government need to be targeted and proportionate, and not a sledgehammer to crack a nut,” said Steve West, president of Universities UK, while highlighting that the UK has the highest completion rate in the OECD at bachelor’s level.

“Overall satisfaction rates remain high.”

However, the UK government wants more to be done to “make the system fairer” for students and also taxpayers who it said “make a huge investment in higher education and are liable for billions of pounds in unrecovered tuition fees if graduate earnings are low”.

Too many students are being sold a university education that won’t get them a decent job at the end of it.

So I’m cracking down on rip-off degrees and boosting apprenticeships to ensure students get the best deal possible.

Widening access. Boosting jobs. Growing the economy.

— Rishi Sunak (@RishiSunak) July 17, 2023

Susan Lapworth, OfS chief executive, agreed that it is important that the regulator can “intervene to protect the interests of students and taxpayers”.

Meanwhile, education secretary Gillian Keegan said that the new measures will “crack down on higher education providers that continue to offer poor quality courses and send a clear signal that we will not allow students to be sold a false promise”.

The impact of the announcement for international students is yet to be determined within the context of the OfS powers, Anne Marie Graham, chief executive, UKCISA, told The PIE

“It is likely to impact domestic students more than international students, though could potentially limit choice for international students who want to study courses in certain sectors if numbers are capped on those courses, and therefore more competitive.”

The UK, via HESA, recently changed the way it collects information on international graduate outcomes, by eliminating surveying international graduates by telephone. This change in methodology means that the response rate has fallen significantly, said Graham.

“As a result, it makes it much more difficult to calculate the employment outcomes for our international graduates who move on to work overseas in their home country or a third country. It’s essential that this methodology is reviewed urgently.”

There has long been contention in the sector surrounding what constitutes as a “low-quality degree”.

Graham believes that if the quality of a degree is calculated using earnings, this would penalise courses with graduates who go into roles in lower paid but highly-skilled sectors such as social work, healthcare and the creative industries, as well those who go on to work in countries where the overall wage base is lower.

“Viewing university through a purely economic lens underestimates its value not only to the people who go there but to society as a whole,” said Polly Mackenzie, chief social purpose officer at the University of the Arts.

In a recent HEPI blog, Mackenzie argued that the graduate outcome survey – used by the government to gauge the success of students 15 months after graduating – is a “blunt instrument” and one which is not effective in measuring the success of creative graduates.

“Sculptors, painters, film producers, performers, designers; graduates like these tend not to be highly paid — early on, at least — but they make life more interesting and enjoyable for millions,” said Mackenzie.

The ‘low-value’ courses of today may have a higher value tomorrow

“The ‘low-value’ courses of today may have a higher value tomorrow and vice versa — past performance is no guarantee of future returns. To build a truly innovative economy, politicians must be open minded about the potential of a broad range of disciplines.”

Almost three in 10 graduates do not progress onto highly-skilled jobs or further study 15 months after graduating, according to the OfS, however some also argue progress onto highly-skilled jobs is an entirely different task for international students, with varying obstacles.

“Many international students and dependents who have studied in the UK face significant challenges when seeking employment. Despite their qualifications and skills, they often find that companies prioritise candidates with UK experience,” said Abhiny Shiny James Allil, an Indian master’s student studying in the UK, who addressed Sunak in a post on LinkedIn.

“This bias against individuals from different countries devalues their expertise and prevents them from utilising their education effectively.”

Meanwhile, the National Union of Students has spoken out strongly against the government’s plans, warning that the decision would affect students from disadvantaged backgrounds the most.

“This is a tired and shortsighted policy by a Prime Minister and government long out of ideas,” NUS UK vice president for higher education, Chloe Field, said.

“Instead of imposing arbitrary caps, the government should focus on enhancing the quality of education across all disciplines and ensuring that students receive relevant and up-to-date knowledge and skills,” Field continued.

“If the government had students’ interests at heart, it would act to remove the barriers to accessing education – including by increasing cost -of-living support – rather than putting yet more barriers in place.”

The post UK: sector reacts to gov’t crackdown on “rip-off” degrees appeared first on The PIE News.

International students with enough athletic prowess can really change the game for themselves – hundreds of thousands of dollars in tuition can be waived if you’re at the top of your game in football, basketball, even tennis or rowing.

This is the case that can be made for a very small minority of student athletes from outside the US who want to study in the country where tuition fees are the most expensive on the planet.

Plenty of scholarships are indeed available, even down to activities like chess, esports and the non-contact version of American football, flag football.

But how accessible they are to international students – especially those hailing from countries outside the Global North – is very much in contention.

In data from the National Collegiate Athletics Association, the top three home countries for first year, division one student athletes hailing from outside the US were Canada, the UK and Spain.

This was followed by Germany, Australia, Sweden, the Netherlands, France, Norway and Italy – all countries classified as Global North nations.

It’s important to note, of course, that the amount of international student athletes represented varies greatly by sport. In women’s tennis, for example, 66% of its athletes in that portion of data were classed as international students.

In men’s American football, perhaps naturally, that percentage point crashes to 2%.

Those team sports generally provide more scholarship places to begin with but the competition is fierce. And that’s just including the domestic athletes vying for a study place with a full or even partial scholarship.

“One of the biggest challenges is that those markets where it’s easily accessible for college coaches – that’s where most choices are made [on which athletes are selected],” Jake Shoemaker, who works in service delivery in the sports recruitment division at Crimson Education, tells The PIE News.

“With regard to something like basketball, it’s generally not a sport where coaches really need to try hard to leave the US to seek talent.

“And when coaches are travelling overseas, they have specific spots where they just know talent comes from. For example, in the rowing realm, there are a few spots in Australia where the elite academic institutions are always trying to pick kids up from Melbourne in particular – schools that just literally feed into UC Berkeley, Yale, Brown etc,” he notes.

“There’s this misconception everyone gets big full ride scholarships”

Crimson has sent athletes to the US from across the globe, some coming from Asia Pacific and South America. But generally, the idea of the “big fish in a small pond”, where some elite student athletes from these areas firmly stand out from the rest, can work to their detriment.

“There’s always the the big fish in the small pond circumstance that sometimes exists in those countries where you’ll have someone who has the desire to come to the US, to take a collegiate scholarship or to compete athletically, but it’s really competitive to access scholarship funding.”

The calibre might still be exceptional, Shoemaker says, but another reality is that financial aid is going towards more needs-based scholarships and those based off of academic merit, leading to a so-called drain in the scholarship pool.

“It’s not a cheap thing to do. There’s this misconception everyone gets big full-ride scholarships,” Keystone Sports’s Stewart Stanbra tells The PIE.

“That’s actually a very small percentage of people. The reality is most people have to invest the money into this to be able to go, and we know how expensive the US can be.

“Some people can get really good deals and that’s what we endeavour to do – matchmake the best way possible – but generally you need some kind of budget,” he adds.

The other issue that remains for recruiting in countries more aligned with the Global South – which, in academic terms, see hundreds of thousands of students attend colleges in the US every year (India and Nigeria to name two) – is that, for recruitment agencies, certain sports pose bigger challenges.

“We’ve helped some tennis players from India in the past, for example, but generally [sports recruitment agencies] don’t have necessarily the expertise in a sport like soccer; you need to assess on a subjective level and we don’t get to go and see them, but with a track and field or a tennis player where there’s a ranking, you can potentially help based on objectivity,” Stanbra explains.

“Generally you [still] need some kind of budget”

One student athlete from India who recognised the enormity of his dream is Tejaswin Shankar, a high jumper who said he thought it was “some sort of scam” that the opportunity was afforded to him.

“My travel, education and stay were all free. I thought it was some sort of kidnapping racket,” he told Indian press after winning a bronze medal at the Commonwealth Games in 2022. Crucially, representing India, having studied at Kansas State University on an NCAA track and field scholarship.

With such a large volume of general students coming from a country like India – and lots with prowess in various different areas, including both academia and sport, Shoemaker touches on the fact that often families have to make a choice.

“The placement process for international student athletes is another big hurdle. If a kid really wants to travel thousands of miles to go to the US to participate in sport, the family also has to value whatever academic opportunity exists in front of them – some will say any academic opportunity is more valuable,” Shoemaker notes.

While the system seems to be less open to those from the Global South at this time, the consensus seems to be that if current mindsets can shift, more student athletes at US colleges could well come from India, Nigeria, and even China – from which the general student numbers are already sky high.

“So many people grow up and have sports be an integral part of their identity, how they structure their time and how they find balance in life – to pursue that at the collegiate level can be so important for some,” Shoemaker concludes.

“I think that the NCAA needs to prioritise [widening access] if that’s going to shift and ultimately be the ones that are responsible for facilitating camps.

“I think that if they make that accessible, open up the doors for coaches, then those at less funded programs would be able to see athletes in those countries in a way that’s simple and easy for them.”

The post International student athletes in the US – a Global North affair? appeared first on The PIE News.

Nepal’s decision to increase tax rates for outgoing students will not have a “dramatic impact” on the numbers studying abroad, say agents. 

Nepal’s government raised the rate of tax students must pay when transferring tuition fees to overseas institutions from 2% to 3% as part of a new budget in May. 

The move is the latest in a series of government interventions targeting Nepali students, sparking concerns that the country could see less students going abroad. 

But agents told The PIE News that the impact of the decision will be minor. 

“The tax was always there,” said Ananta Poudyal, managing director of Nepal Education Consultancy and president of the Association of Nepalese Alumni from Australia. “I don’t think it will have any dramatic impact to affect the numbers.” 

“The tax was always there”

“I am confident it will not prevent Nepali students going abroad,” agreed Jayaram Poudel, Nepal country manager at VIEC. 

Over 20,000 Nepalis secured Australian student visas in the first half of the 2022/23 academic year, making it Australia’s third largest source market following China and India. 

But Nepal’s government has been accused of trying to prevent students from leaving the country for overseas education. 

Earlier this year, the government reversed a decision to stop offering “No Objection Certificates”, which are required by students going overseas for non higher-education programs, such as vocational training.  

The ministry of education had decided to only allow students to go abroad for university programs, but backtracked after pressure from students, agents and providers. 

“Though the government is concerned that many students are going out, [they] also know that it is the fundamental right of the student to study what they want,” Poudel said.

The post Nepal tax rise won’t have “dramatic impact” appeared first on The PIE News.

The education abroad sector is facing inadequate staffing and burnout, new research from the Forum on Education Abroad has suggested.

Conducted biannually since 2007, the organisation’s ninth State of the Field Report from the 2022 survey of its 151 member institutions and over 300 individual stakeholders in the field “takes the pulse” of what’s happening in the education abroad sector.

The aim is to apprise education abroad professionals of current trends in the field to “crowdsource strategies for overcoming challenges and reaching new goals” and to inform policy.

In a webinar hosted by The Forum, some of the authors, Amelia Dietrich, Kelly Holland, Emily Gorlewski, Miguel Ayllon, Deirdre Sheridan, and Kyle Rausch, highlighted key findings from the survey.

Amelia Dietrich, senior director for research and publications for The Forum, told The PIE that for the 2022 survey, said that by collaborating with colleagues from different organisations and in different professional roles allowed a “more comprehensive project”.

A new component of this year’s project included individual stakeholder surveys, in which respondents were asked about their individual job responsibilities and salaries, as well as their current level of satisfaction in their position.

A notable statistic was that 56% of all respondents were currently, or had in the past year been, seeking a new position. When asked about the most important factors for employment, compensation and benefits, organisational support and culture, and pathways to promotion ranked highest.

Based on the results of this new component of the survey, The Forum published a white paper composed of data, insights and recommendations to address concerns of international educators.

“The partnership with the working group [which produced the white paper] brought in more perspectives, more voices and more creativity to deliver contextualised data and recommendations that support our colleagues and inform their work,” asserted Dietrich.

“We’re at risk at losing a huge amount of people, experience and knowledge”

Kyle Rausch, executive director of the office of global engagement at the University of Illinois at Chicago, chaired the working group and noted that work responsibilities required in this field have changed dramatically over the past few years.

“Although the data are not the most uplifting, it’s not necessarily surprising to those of us who have been feeling the pressures and constraints which the pandemic only exacerbated,” he shared with the PIE.

“It is incumbent upon us as a field to continue this line of research and advocacy. We cannot accept the status quo and must use principles of respectful disruptive leadership to ‘call in’ as opposed to ‘call out’ our leaders who can affect the change that needs to occur for the betterment of our profession.”

One of the central concerns that emerged from the data was inadequate staffing in education abroad departments with 80% of respondents indicating that they lacked sufficient staffing. Of these 80%, almost half reported that just one additional full-time equivalent staff member would significantly address their departmental needs.

Yet despite the fact that education abroad has rebounded post-pandemic, just shy of half of the respondents indicated that their current staffing was less than pre-pandemic.

This is compounded by the fact that reductions and high turnover resulted in the loss of institutional knowledge in many departments, leading to a steep learning curve for new staff.

“That for me is really quite alarming,” said Deidre Sheridan, international manager for the school of medicine at University of Galway. “We’re at risk at losing a huge amount of people, experience and knowledge.”

She said the sector needs to think about “how we harness the passion [for education abroad] and keep people in our organisations and field and also satisfy the needs they have around training and professional development”.

For even with seasoned staff, results indicated that nearly half are asked to perform skills in which they have not been formally trained. These include finance/budget management, risk management, technology, crisis management and outreach and marketing. Moreover, respondents listed four of these five skills as being in the top 10 competencies needed to perform their roles effectively.

Panellists also discussed how these added pressures and the notion of continually “doing more with less” has contributed to significant burnout in the field.

Discussing the burnout befalling industry colleagues, Kelly Holland, vice president of institutional partnerships at AIFS Abroad told The PIE, “The timing of the survey caught many of us in a challenging time and the results are one way to articulate what made the work so challenging.”

Miguel Ayllon, executive director for international partnerships and study abroad at University of Missouri suggested the burnout data indicates the field is still healing. “We’re healing from Covid-19, from job losses… racial injustice, the threats to our nation that we endured.”

He added that what gives him hope is the solidarity within the study abroad field. “There is power in us being together….and walking in this journey together…as we collectively heal as a group.”

For Emily Gorlewski, director of study abroad at Wesleyan University in Connecticut, the silver lining is in being able to “open up the field” as new hires come on board. “We can advocate for more diversity,” she said.

And she recommended looking for those with a passion for the profession as she asserted, “you can’t teach passion. Skills can be taught”.

She recommended, “gathering and sharing resources and having open and honest conversations” with colleagues to be supportive and help each other move forward.

All panellists also underscored the importance of advocacy in order to enact meaningful change. They encouraged using the report as a tool to encourage dialogue about what is and is not working.

Dietrich concluded, “Engaging with practitioners in the scholarly work of critical self-reflection about their practice and profession results in nuanced, actionable data that is both more accessible and more affirming of the work international educators do to make high-quality education abroad opportunities available to all students.”

The post Staff reductions and high turnover hitting US study abroad appeared first on The PIE News.

Students at universities in London are becoming increasingly unrestful as university marking boycotts approach their third month.

The halt on marking is nationwide and is the culmination of failed industrial negotiations between the University and College Union and the Universities & Colleges Employers Association.

Although the disputes are over staff pay, pensions and working conditions, the effects on students are becoming a greater pressure on universities.

While support for academic staff was initially very strong, opinions on the boycotts are changing as graduation and visa deadlines become more immediate concerns.

From the standpoint of UCEA, universities turning to a marking boycott as a last resort are attempting to target students. King’s College London however states that they are doing everything they can to avoid boycotts detrimentally affecting students.

Students entering the job market fear extra barriers to securing a job without the promise of graduating on time. This is particularly pressing for international students attracted to the UK by the two-year post-study work graduate visa. A master’s student at LSE worries that many of their classmates will be affected.

“Most students on student visas are afraid to voice their opinion as they feel that it may impact that future employment opportunities and a chance to get post-study work,” they said.

“Instead they gulp up their frustration and make the best of what all they have”

“They are scared that if they are seen acting against the university it may report them and affect their long stay opportunities. So instead they gulp up their frustration and make the best of what all they have.”

University solutions have led to further fears. KCL will use the marks from previous module assessments where staff continue to protest. This means that in principle graduation should go forward as planned, but some worry that hard work to improve on previous grades will be ignored.

“By communicating this to students, what incentive will students have to complete their dissertations?” questioned another student in response to KCL’s marking strategy.

KCL told The PIE News that the university is “considering the effects of the boycott on our international students and applicants”.

“[We] are proactively working with any students who require further support and as per UKVI guidelines,” a spokesperson added.

Strong student support still remains for the strikes, with much of student unrest directed towards university management for failing to compromise.

“I personally do not put the blame on the people on strike. They wanted a 5% rise in pay and got offered 3% with a 10% inflation rate,” said a master’s student from KCL irate with the institution’s management of the dispute.

Relying on provisional grades rather than responding to academic staff, he argued, “is just a sign that they do not care for their staff and they also do not care for their students”.

Some students however now blame academic staff and UCU. A UCL international student believes that the UCU stance is irresponsible and entitled.

“The salaries that lecturers are on are very high by South African standards. In South Africa strikes are often mine workers and taxi drivers – people who are in very different financial circumstances.

“I think that the universities have messaged this in a way to try and get students to support what they are doing when students are suffering from their actions. I don’t think it is fair, or honest.”

PhD students often bridge a gap between the role of student and teacher. This dual role is a point of personal conflict for PhDs involved in marking assessments. A UCL PhD student supports the boycotts, but is split between looking to the future and their financial situation now.

“I support the boycott because of my current payment”

“I support the boycott because of my current payment, and the prospects of an academic career as an early researcher do not look good. My university has threatened to cut a big proportion of my wage for my participation, even though marking amounts to a very small proportion of my duties,” they said.

The apparent lack of effectiveness of the boycott is a cause of their concern. “The university has found ways to reallocate the work of strikers, or to bypass marking procedures altogether,” they noted.

“This makes me feel very stressed about the future, as I begin to see how even the right to strike becomes less and less powerful.”

Another UCL PhD student complained that the university treated them detrimentally as if they were striking, despite choosing not to join the industrial action.

The post Student unrest mounts amid UK marking boycott appeared first on The PIE News.

A list of eight new majors will now be eligible for a program allowing international students to work in the US for three years post-graduation, replacing the prior one-year limit, in a new US government announcement.

The departments of immigration and customs enforcement and homeland security indicate that “the list is used to determine whether a degree obtained by certain F-1 non-immigrant students following the completion of a program of study qualifies as a science, technology, engineering, or mathematics (STEM) degree as determined by DHS, as required for the F-1 student to be eligible to apply for a 24-month extension of their post-completion optional practical training (OPT).”

DHS had previously published the addition of 22 qualifying fields of study to the STEM list in 2022.

Leaders in international education in the US shared their reaction with The PIE News about the impact the new guidance will likely have on recruitment and retention of international students.

Jill Blondin, associate vice provost for global initiatives at Virginia Commonwealth University told The PIE this is a positive move, “as it increases opportunities for students as it prepares them for cutting-edge, in-demand fields.”

Jane Gatewood believes this news serves as a reflection of the innovation of US universities in their academic and research programs.

“I’m pleased to see DHS expand STEM OPT to include more disciplines, as promised by the Biden administration.

“It’s no secret that international students factor future employment opportunities into their educational decisions, and STEM OPT options help attract and retain key talent to the US economy,” Gatewood, vice provost for global engagement at the University of Rochester, continued.

She said these factors were critical in the Simon School of Business at University of Rochester when they pursued the STEM OPT classification for their MBA program several years ago, being the first business school to do so.

Kalpen Trivedi, vice provost for global affairs and director of the international programs office at University of Massachusetts Amherst concurred, telling The PIE he’s “very glad” to see eight new programs added to the eligible list.

“[The list] including landscape architecture, institutional research, and linguistics and computing… will continue to benefit our students, our institutions, and our economy,” he said.

“It’s no secret that international students factor future employment opportunities into their educational decisions”

Trivedi also noted the new guidance “not only provides an important pathway to valuable work experience for international students, but also helps to secure the US’s talent and human capital pipeline by allowing the best and the brightest who have been trained in our universities to access the H1B lottery.”

Likewise, Jon Stauff, assistant vice president for international affairs at South Dakota State University, said he welcomes the recent expansion.

Stauff said it will likely serve to gain “not just the disciplinary expertise of these graduates in our workforce”, but also the “cultural competencies they will share with their employers and their communities during their OPT experiences”.

“The contributions these students will make will strengthen our state’s industrial sector and enhance our competitiveness in the region and the nation,” he concluded.

The post Sector welcomes new US STEM OPT guidance appeared first on The PIE News.

TNE collaboration in Europe needs reform so universities can better understand and utilise its benefits, according to the author of a new report from the Guild of European Research-Intensive Universities.

The Transnational education and mobility in higher education: looking back – looking forward paper examines European universities’ approaches to transnational collaboration, as well as innovation and policy implications.

“The sector’s current support and participation in international education activities shows the buy-in,” said Jo Magouri, professor in sociolinguistics and the university-level academic director for education and internationalisation at the University of Warwick.

“To build on this momentum, we need to approach transnational collaboration with a new holistic approach which must cut across resourcing, careers, admin and pedagogical support, and infrastructure.”

The current system for general international collaboration, according to the report, shows that the actual workings of transnational collaboration remain vague. 

The report notes that “little systematic work on the benefits” of transnational partnership for the sector exist, both in policy discourse and scholarship. 

According to the European Commission, benefits – according to only anecdotal evidence – include improved internationalisation, improved and diversified educational offerings and improved students’ employability, among other advantages.

However, the report points out that the exact meaning of these benefits are left open, as is how international collaboration is the “way to achieve” such benefits. 

“Policy priorities should build on existing good practices and have a clear and added value for institutions and academics to secure the sector’s buy-in,” the report recommended. 

The same goes for TNE cooperation benefits – listed by the EC as increasing global competitiveness, helping to tackle global challenges and nurturing equality. 

“This list is, yet again, intuitively in line with the vision of a global, border free international education – but, meanings and processes remain at high level and therefore need operationalisation in order to be distilled into the activities, processes and structures that are necessary to get there,” the report noted.

“Meanings and processes remain at high level and therefore need operationalisation”

Traditional collaboration methods in TNE will suffer without further investment, and the benefits of it will reach “less of the student body”, considering only a small fraction of students actually go into study abroad or joint programs. 

In the report, Magouri recommended that the “holistic” approach needs a “nuanced and diverse set of learning activities involving multiple mobilities”.

“[We must draw] on an internationalisation approach that is based on an educational model synchronised with the complexity of real-world problems.

“Universities need to lead on changing the practice and narrative for innovation in internationalisation of education. Research should be used for evidence-based policy recommendations,” Magouri added.

The post Report: TNE benefits “need more detail” appeared first on The PIE News.

The US government has indicated that it is prioritising international education in its National Export Strategy for the first time.

US secretary of commerce Gina Raimondo released the 2023 NES, which notably includes a full chapter on international education.

The long-awaited strategy highlighted that education will be a $7 trillion industry by 2025. A significant element of this is travel exports for education purposes, which includes all expenditures by inbound international students to the US.

In 2022, US exports of education-related travel totalled $37.68 billion, a 17% increase from the previous year.

“Education exports also return cross-cutting economic benefits to the nation through workforce development, R&D, and foreign direct investment – which underpin prosperity, economic development, and competitiveness across sectors,” highlighted the report.

The strategy showcases the “novel approaches” in five areas being taken to promote the US as a leading study destination, in a bid to better equip US companies and workers to compete globally and grow through international trade;

• Connecting US institutions and consortia with foreign groups interested in US education
• Promoting the US as a premier study destination
• Highlighting the importance of international education as a US export
• Identifying and promoting global opportunities to the US education industry
• Levelling the playing field in export markets

“The NES builds on long-standing educational exchanges, including the US Department of State’s flagship The Fulbright Program and EducationUSA global advising, to maintain and grow the United States as the premier study destination for international students,” said EducationUSA in a LinkedIn post.

“The NES builds on long-standing educational exchanges”

The report to Congress also delved into the non-economic benefits of welcoming international students to the US-strengthened relationships between current and future leaders, global competency and supporting US research and innovation.

Touching on the repercussions of the pandemic, the report highlighted that 2020 marked the largest single-year drop in the dollar amount contributed by international students studying at US higher education institutions, according to NAFSA research.

The report cited unused capacity for additional enrolments at all levels of education, and the affordability of community colleges in a list of advantages the country has over other leading destinations.

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