Britain’s universities are no longer sustained by domestic tuition or public funding. Instead, they survive on the financial lifeblood of international students – young people from Asia, Africa, and beyond who pay three times more than their British peers for the same courses. The country issued 484,000 sponsored study visas in 2022, double the number just four years earlier. By 2023–24, nearly a quarter of all students in the UK – 732,000 in total – came from abroad. Without this influx, many universities would face collapse.
The figures are staggering. International education now generates more than £20 billion annually for Britain, with over 80 per cent of this revenue coming from non-EU students. Fees from these students make up about a quarter of total university income, and in some institutions the proportion is far higher. Australia offers a parallel example: its international education sector, worth AU$51 billion, has overtaken gold as the country’s most valuable export.
But this business model comes at a cost. Behind the glossy marketing campaigns and celebratory statistics lies a shadow system of recruitment agents – intermediaries who promise students a bright future in the UK but often deliver something far less certain. These agents have become the main channel through which foreign students enter Britain: two-thirds of them are referred by agents. Commission rates run from 10 to 30 per cent of tuition fees, creating an incentive to sign up as many students as possible, regardless of fit. One university spent £55 million in a single year – more than 12 per cent of its expenditure – on agent commissions. Globally, three-quarters of American universities now use such agents, up from barely a third less than a decade ago.
The problem is not simply that agents exist, but that their operations are largely unregulated. Families remortgage homes and take on crippling debts to send their children abroad, guided by promises that often misrepresent the reality. Students are told that part-time work will cover rent, that jobs after graduation are guaranteed, that life in Britain will be affordable and welcoming. The reality is harsher: steep fees, high living costs, limited working hours, and uncertain employment prospects. Many students overwork to repay debts, neglect studies, and in some cases lose their places entirely for failing attendance requirements. The sacrifices, particularly for families from poorer backgrounds in South Asia and Africa, can be devastating.
The reliance on agents has changed the priorities of universities themselves. Senior leaders admit openly that “increasing revenue” now ranks above improving teaching or research. In 2024, a global survey showed a sharp rise in university executives placing financial gain at the centre of their international recruitment strategies. At the same time, many British institutions are cutting staff, merging departments, and offering voluntary severance packages, even as they hire new teams dedicated solely to attracting more foreign students. The message is clear: international recruitment trumps all else.
The funneling of students into particular courses reveals how commercial the system has become. More than half of new arrivals from India and Pakistan study business or law, disciplines marketed aggressively by agents as pathways to prosperity. Chinese students cluster in engineering and science, while Americans prefer arts and humanities. These imbalances are not just reflections of student choice, but products of targeted selling. The result is oversaturation in certain fields, where job opportunities do not match the supply of graduates. For students who borrowed heavily to study, disappointment often follows.
The secondary effects are equally troubling. To boost numbers, universities increasingly rely on franchised provision: outsourcing courses to private colleges and overseas partners while pocketing a cut of tuition fees, often between 12.5 and 30 per cent. The number of students on franchised UK degrees has doubled in recent years to over 130,000. Yet oversight is weak. Auditors have warned of cases where franchised students have little evidence of attendance, where recruitment relied on cash incentives or dubious agents, and where qualifications on entry were unknown or non-existent. Some institutions have grown so dependent on this model that they enroll more students through franchises than on their main campuses.
The risks are clear. When education becomes a global commodity sold through middlemen, students are no longer scholars but customers – and vulnerable ones at that. Dropout rates are high at institutions heavily dependent on foreign students. In some classes, international students form the majority, straining staff already stretched by budget cuts. Lecturers report having to adapt courses for students with weaker English or academic preparation, sometimes resorting to live translation in classrooms. Morale is low among faculty who see their institutions prioritising recruitment over quality.
Government has belatedly recognised the dangers. A new Agent Quality Framework was launched in 2023, requiring universities to register for a code of conduct, and a new system was introduced in 2024 to allow the naming of agents on visa forms. But compliance is voluntary, oversight is minimal, and large players can easily evade scrutiny. Ministers have tightened migration rules instead, restricting dependants and threatening to shorten the post-study work visa. These measures may reduce numbers temporarily, but they do little to address the structural dependence of universities on international cash.
The reality is that Britain’s global reputation as an education hub has been built on precarious foundations. International students are celebrated as a £20 billion export, but the revenue is volatile, heavily dependent on a handful of markets, and eroded by scholarships and hefty agent commissions. If flows from India, Pakistan, or China slow – whether due to geopolitical tensions, shifting visa rules, or domestic backlash – many universities will face financial crises.
For the students themselves, the promise of social mobility through a British degree often proves hollow. Tuition fees of £16,000 or more per year, combined with high living expenses, are only justified if graduates secure well-paid jobs. For many, that is not the case. Some return home with heavy debts and little to show for their sacrifices. The dream of a global education, sold aggressively by agents and embraced by universities desperate for cash, too often becomes a story of exploitation.
The UK now faces a stark choice. It can continue down this path, treating foreign students as revenue streams and tolerating the murky practices of agents, or it can confront the uncomfortable truth: higher education has been financialised to the point of crisis. Without stronger regulation, transparency, and a rebalancing of priorities, Britain risks hollowing out one of its proudest institutions. The universities will remain full – but what they stand for will be empty.
