Britain’s research-intensive universities remain heavily dependent on Chinese students despite warnings that many institutions are over-reliant on this single source of income, says a report led by former universities minister Lord Johnson of Marylebone.
Nine Russell Group universities had more than 5,000 students from China, and one institution – UCL – had more than 10,000 Chinese students, roughly a quarter of its 44,000-strong student body, explains the report published by the Policy Institute at King’s College London on 13 September.
Overall, UK universities taught 55,195 undergraduates and 78,265 taught postgraduates from China in 2021-22, with four-fifths of them concentrated in one-fifth of universities – the Russell Group institutions plus six others, it adds.
Of the 18 universities with the highest Chinese enrolments, 17 were Russell Group universities, alongside the University of Arts London (ranked seventh), which had 5,540 Chinese among its total of 12,060 non-UK students.
