UK is ‘losing the benefit’ of science courses

GROWING numbers of science and maths students attending British universities are from outside the UK, which could have a damaging effect on the economy, a new study has suggested.

It warns that an increasing proportion of science, technology, engineering and maths (Stem) courses are being taken up by students from abroad. If they return home after completing their studies, it is their own nation that will benefit from their UK education, not the UK itself.

The study, by the think-tank Civitas, analyses official higher education data to look at where Stem students are from.

The findings show that in all four groups of Stem subjects, overseas students have grown at a faster rate than British student numbers, and that these students are increasingly from countries outside the EU.

There were 33,298 more computer science students in 2006-07 than in 1996-97, and overseas students accounted for 41.7 per cent of this rise, the study found. And the number of British engineering and technology students fell by 5,769 during this ten-year period, while the number of international students increased by 12,308.