While offers to international students more than doubled, those made to students from the rest of the UK have increased by 53% over the last five years.
An investigation by The Glasgow Guardian has revealed that the University of Glasgow has doubled the number of offers handed out to international students over the last five years. This is the highest rise across the four categories of student admissions (Scottish, rest of the UK, EU and International).
At the University of Glasgow the number of offers made to international undergraduates has increased from 2580 to 6536, a percentage increase of 153% between 2017 and 2022. Students from abroad can pay fees up to £53,000 a year for a medical degree and £23,000 for a degree from the school of social sciences. International students provide a large proportion of admissions income. An investigation by The Times showed that Chinese students alone make up a 31% share of tuition fee income compared with 7% for Scottish students.
The number of students from the rest of the UK (England, Wales and Northern Ireland), who pay over £9,000 a year to attend, increased by 53%. In 2017 4508 offers to students were made in this category and this year 6908 were made.
There has been a rapid decline in the number of undergraduate offers to students from the EU since Brexit. Between 2017-2022 the number of offers to students from the EU has decreased 65%. Given that now students from the EU are treated as international students in terms of fees there would inevitably be a decline in the number of applications being made hence the sharp decline in offers.
This year also saw the highest number of offers handed out to students from Scotland. This year there were over 2000 more offers handed out to Scottish students than in 2017. However this is less than the overall rate of increase.
Over the five year period the number of student offers have increased by 30% hitting a high of 27,083 this year. Minutes obtained by The Glasgow Guardian from a Senior Management group meeting in January suggest that it is the College of Arts that has seen the most significant growth across all fee paying statuses, bar the EU.
Whilst this data does not show the number of students that actually took up a place at the University of Glasgow this year, that data will be available publicly in March, however it does show the intent by the University to change the dynamic of the student body.
