Plagiary

The Times today reports on a ‘crisis’ in universities, with high levels of student cheating, disproportionately committed by overseas students. The Times story is here, behind a paywall – I’m loathe to give Mr Murdoch any money, so I’ll summarise from other media sources.

From The Times, 2 January 2016

It seems that the Times surveyed UK universities and found that nearly 50,000 had been ‘caught cheating’ over the past three years, with 362 being expelled. In a subset of 70 universities- presumably those which collated data via fee status – overseas students accounted for 35% of cheating cases, but made up only 12% of the student population.

Thanks to The Guardian for their summary of the Times story.

The story focuses on plagiarism – with Geoffrey Alderman asserting that ‘type 1’ plagiarism (copying someone else’s words) is declining, with ‘type 2’ plagiarism (paying someone else to write your coursework for you) is on the increase. No data are given to support this, but anecdotally it feels plausible.

It is an interesting issue. To understand it better you’d need to discuss the nature of plagiarism detection (much more sophisticated than it used to be) and issues around the nature of assessment, and what it is meant to demonstrate. One thing which I’ve noticed across in dealing with student tissues in a number of different UK universities is that expectations of higher education, and of the role in examinations of independent thought, vary across education systems. In some systems, memorising and repeating back the words of authorities – your professor, books and journals – seems to be considered good. So students who copy may, at first, think that they’re doing the right thing. This seems to me to be an educational issue more than a moral one.

Notice also the emphasis on overseas students cheating disproportionately. Multiplying out the proportions, some 32,500 home and EU students were caught cheating over three years, compared to 17,500 overseas students. Yes, it’s disproportionate. I’d be interested to see how many of these were ‘first offence’ plagiarism as opposed to repeat offences (or indeed other sorts of exam cheating.) If you factor in the cultural/educational differences it doesn’t seem like a crisis or a moral panic. But are we meant to understand that overseas students are somehow lowering standards? If so, it’s all grist to Theresa May’s immigration mill. And very unpleasant bread it makes, as well.

I don’t expect we’ve heard the last of this – I’ll be reading ministerial speeches closely to see whether a ‘cheating foreigner’ theme begins to emerge.

An export business

With about a month to go until the start of the new academic year universities are busy with admissions and preparations for enrolment. Nothing new about that. But its worth looking at who is being admitted.

source: HESA, my calculations

The chart shows two things.

The columns, in blue, represent the total number of students enrolled in universities in a given year. The numbers reflect real people, not full-time equivalents, so this is the number of actual people enrolled. They also include all levels - undergraduate, postgraduate taught and research.

The line, in orange, represents the proportion of students whose domicile is outside the UK - that is, from any other EU country or from anywhere in the rest of the world. (A technical note for Theresa may, James Brokenshire and others - domicile is not identical to nationality; there will be a small number of people who count as domiciled outside the UK who have UK citizenship - its very complicated...)

(A second technical note for data geeks - the rest of you can skip over this one. HESA changed population definitions and from 2007-08 did not include writing-up and sabbatical students within the overall student numbers, recording them separately without domiciliary data. The proportion of of non-UK students is calculated on the basic HESA data; the total number of students is the raw HESA data plus the writing up/sabbatical data. The difference is negligible, but best to be clear.)

So the overall picture is one of a growth - and its too soon to see definitively whether there's a peak in 2010-11 or a temporary trough in 2012-13 and 2013-14. But the growing proportion of non-UK domiciled students adds to the picture: here's another chart, with one fewer significant axis:

source: HESA, my calculations

The blue is UK domiciled student numbers, the orange is students from the rest of the world. (Data geeks: I've assumed the split for writing-up students mirrors the split for PG students generally and calculated on this basis.)

This seems to me to show that UK student numbers in 2013-14 are pretty much where they were in 2002-03 (actually about eight thousand fewer). The number of UK domicile students hasn't been static over the period - there were nearly 1/4 million more in 09-10 than in 13-14), but the overall growth between 02-03 and 13-14 is driven by non-UK students.

This really does go to show that higher education is an export business. Universities UK regularly seeks to explain - to government and to the public - that universities are a major export industry. And with good reason - without overseas students in particular, many UK universities would be in financial difficulty. It would be a good idea - economically speaking - for the government to discount overseas students from its migration figures, and ease up on visa restrictions.

Shut that door!

One outcome of the election which seems very clear is the continuation of previous Home Office policy towards international students. This won’t be welcome news to universities.

Firstly, the Conservative manifesto:

We will reform the student visa system with new measures to tackle abuse and reduce the numbers of students overstaying once their visas expire. Our action will include clamping down on the number of so-called ‘satellite campuses’ opened in London by universities located elsewhere in the UK, and reviewing the highly trusted sponsor system for student visas. And as the introduction of exit checks will allow us to place more responsibility on visa sponsors for migrants who overstay, we will introduce targeted sanctions for those colleges or businesses that fail to ensure that migrants comply with the terms of their visa.(p30, We will continue to cut immigration from outside the EU)

Secondly, the ministerial team: Theresa May reappointed as Home Secretary; James Brokenshire reappointed, but with a narrower brief, covering immigration only (in the last government he had responsibility for Immigration and Security). Both have proven unresponsive to lobbying on the question of overseas student numbers and their inclusion in the net migration targets.

There are three specific actions:

• Reviewing the highly trusted sponsor (HTS) system, under which universities are allocated the right to sponsor a certain number of students

• ‘Clamping down’ on satellite campuses in London – that is, London campuses operated by universities outside London. Presumably the argument is that away from the main administrative operation, there’s a greater risk that students will not be ‘genuine’ students, whatever that is held to mean

• Placing more responsibility on sponsors for students who overstay their visas – presumably requiring universities to keep tabs on where their students are, and where necessary taking direct steps to ensure that they leave the UK when their visas expire.

My guess is that the first thing to happen will be the HTS review, which will lead to more stringent criteria for achieving highly trusted status. And several universities either having their HTS status withdrawn, or choosing not to reapply. I've posted before on the dependency of UK universities on overseas student fee income, and removal of HTS is likely to have real and deleterious consequences.

Is that what the fuss is really about?

And on the same theme, but more positively for universities, London First published today a report on the benefit to the UK of London-based international students. (See also the BBC news report.) Using what looks like a pretty rigorous methodology, PwC calculate that overseas students at London universities (not at satellite campuses, mark you) generate £2.8 billion annually for the UK economy, and draw on £540 million annually of public services, a net annual benefit of £2.3 billion.

The report is well worth reading, and makes some sensible recommendations to government including, crucially, not counting overseas students within the net migration total. The problem here is that the Conservative manifesto is very specific; it’s an area where 2010 manifesto commitments weren't met, leading to pressure to deliver this time; and the narrative is tied in with the question of Europe, and the in-out referendum. I’m fairly sure that the Prime Minister doesn't want to the UK to leave the EU; but he’s calculating that to win the referendum he needs to be seen to be tough.

Difficult times ahead. It would take a brave university to plan on growth in overseas student numbers; it might be wise to work on a few contingency plans too.

Estimating dependency upon overseas student fee income

I posted yesterday on the impact on UK university finances of removing overseas tuition fees and, being at heart a numbers geek, I've been doing some more work with the data. I've now written a briefing note which you can find in the Resources page of my website, or download it directly here.

A headline finding to whet the appetite - over 80% of net UK university surpluses in 2012-13 can be attributed to overseas student fee income.  That's not just the total of the fee income, but the part of it which isn't spent on providing the tuition.

The arguments about student visas and the UKVI are a high-stakes game ...

Risky business

It’s horror show time again as immigration controls on international students, and alleged fraud in some components of the student visa system, hit the headlines: here’s the Times’ Higher’s take on the statement by the Immigration Minister yesterday, and here’s the BBC’s.

There’ll be acres of newsprint (and amps of webpages? what’s the digital equivalent of ‘acres of newsprint’?) on the details of the story, and I’m not going to try to compete in this blog post. But I do want to pose a hypothetical ‘what-if’ question. What if overseas students stopped coming to the UK? Specifically, what would happen to university finances?

Well, obviously, there’d be no overseas fee income. And this amounted to over £3.5 billion in 2012-13. That’s no small beer. But equally, there’d be no costs associated with teaching those students, so it isn’t as simple as taking £3.5 billion off universities’ income.

The TRAC data give us a way to estimate the underlying effect. According to HEFCE’s latest TRAC figures, non-publicly funded teaching in 2012-13 brought in an income of £3.281 billion and the full economic cost of delivering that teaching was £2.466 billion. This means that the teaching cost about 75% of the income; or, conversely, that about 25% of the income was a direct contribution to institutional surpluses.

Of course that’s a sector average, and the detail will inevitably vary across individual institutions, but it’s not bad as a first estimate. I used this proportion to model what would have happened to 2012-13 university surpluses if there’s been no overseas students, no overseas fees, and no costs to teach those students. (That is, I took the 2012-13 reported surplus for each institution, and subtracted from it 25% of the overseas fee income for that institution).

The chart shows the results. The vertical axis is the number of institutions in surplus or in deficit; the left hand bar shows the actual 2012-13 data; the right hand bar shows the modelled data without overseas fees or costs.

So as things stand, 19 out of 161 institutions which report to HESA had a deficit in 2012-13. If there hadn’t been overseas fees and costs, 63 out of 161 would have shown a deficit. The net total surplus in 2012-13, across all institutions, was just over £1,083 million. Without the contribution from overseas fees it would have been just under £206 million.

Now, as Patsy the horse said to King Arthur, in Monty Python and the Holy Grail, when they had just seen Camelot, “it’s only a model” (link opens in You Tube). The real world would not be like this, and there’s lots of reasons why the estimate I’ve made wouldn’t be specifically right. And the likelihood of all overseas recruitment simply stopping is very low indeed, I would say. But the model reinforces a hard truth.

And that hard truth is that uncertainty about overseas student recruitment is a very real and quantifiable risk for UK universities. A financial risk but also, let’s be clear, a risk to the reputation of the sector and the experience of student and staff in the universities. The presence of overseas students broadens UK students’ horizons, by enabling them to learn alongside people from other cultures and backgrounds; and universities are more interesting and cosmopolitan places because of overseas students. Long may it continue.

Let’s hope that the specific issues raised by James Brokenshire and the BBC Panorama programme are resolved. And let’s also hope that the politics of immigration, and the politics of the coalition government and electoral cycle, don’t conspire to damage a really important feature of UK higher education.