Scots universities have been accused of "profiteering" from international students as research shows revenue from course fees has soared to "astonishing levels".
Three out of every four pounds collected by the University of Glasgow now comes from fees from oversees students, according to a report, which warns that a "reliance" on this revenue stream has created a "crisis of multiple dimensions".
The country's largest universities are said to have raked in £ 1.7 billion from 2020 to 2022, it is claimed, due to "aggressive" marketing campaigns aimed at boosting admissions.
Despite concerns about a loss of income and students during Covid, institutions made substantial increases and at a faster rate than ever before.
From 2020 to 2022, the University of Edinburgh generated more than half a billion pounds (£608 million) with the University of Glasgow netting £482 million.
According to the report, which is focusses on Glasgow, the institution recorded faster growth than any other Scottish or Russell Group university across the UK with three-quarters of fee revenue now coming from overseas students. The university said it disputed much of the report's findings describing it as "wilfully misleading".
There’s very little sign universities are exercising due diligence around the money they are making off international students
International tuition income was worth £281.5 million pounds to the university in 2022, according to the report, almost three times its value in 2016 and more than six times the value of income from ‘home’ students.
Fees are around £22,000-£48,000 a year while the report notes "the same degree costs many many thousands less" for home-domiciled students.
The report is critical that the availability of student accommodation, teaching space and staff workloads "had not been considered".
It said: "This is not likely to be the experience that students paying upwards of £40,000 or £60,000 per year expected."
It found that international students may also be "getting set up to fail" with referrals for plagiarism and re-sits increasing in recent years. The University of Glasgow academic who led the study said this was her experience.
It suggests that free tuition fees in Scotland and a cap on home student numbers may have fuelled efforts to increase revenue from international fees.
The analysis claims universities have expanded international admissions by adjusting minimum entry requirements and English language tests for some programmes while entry criteria for Scottish home undergraduates is "becoming increasingly competitive".
Data used to compile the report entitled Profiting from the Pandemic was extracted from university annual reports and audited accounts, HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) open data, and Company House filings.
It looked at larger universities that turn over at least £250million in income per year or have the highest number of students: Glasgow, Edinburgh, Strathclyde, St Andrews, Glasgow Caledonian, University of the West of Scotland and Stirling.
Professor Sarah Armstrong, of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research and author of the report, said: "We need to ask serious questions about the value we are offering to students being charged £25,000 to nearly 50,000.
"How are we supporting them to succeed and what are they getting out of this?
"The University of Glasgow has received half a billion pounds for their part of the bargain, and it’s part of our duty as university members to ensure this is providing value to students around the world whose families have scraped and saved to earn universities this level of income.
"Using their own data, I have documented some clearly worrying trends.
"There’s very little sign the universities are exercising due diligence around the money they are making off international students, many of whom take out loans or low-paid work while here.
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She added: "My own motive is to understand how Scottish universities fared in the pandemic, to understand the rapid growth of Scottish universities during this, and through this understanding to help build university systems which are academically excellent, diverse and meaningfully engaged with the cities they are located in."
China remains the country from which most international students in the UK come, followed by India and Nigeria.
Prof Armstrong said international students were becoming "increasingly vocal though not yet effectively collectivised" about their status as "sources of income drivers."
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Collectively, universities in Greater Glasgow (Glasgow, Strathclyde, GCU, UWS) added almost 27,000 international students to the city in 2021/22.
Income in 2022 from international students at UWS was nearly quadrupled and at GCU was two-and-a-half times what it had been in 2019. However, both were starting from a much lower baseline than the larger universities.
The University of Glasgow claimed the report's findings were "flawed".
A spokesman said: "No student, international or otherwise, is set up to fail; three-quarters of our tuition fees do not come from overseas students; numbers of international students do not limit the number of Scottish students; and the University has not actively pursued expansion during the pandemic period.
"Much of this report is simply untrue and only serves to fuel prejudices, particularly against our international students, rather than balanced debate.”
The university said that during Covid it had allowed foreign students to start their studies at two points during the year and said applications also unexpectedly rose which led to a significant increase in intake.
It said the report failed to highlight the "significant financial support it has put into place for international students nor the fact that many students come to the UK with some form of government scholarship."
The university disputed the allegation that increasing numbers of foreign students would make it more difficult for Scottish students to get places saying numbers are determined by the Scottish Funding Council (SFC).
In response Prof Armstrong said: "I welcome the opportunity to speak to university leaders about this work, and invite them to provide me, as I have done for them, public access to their report."
A spokesman for Universities Scotland said: "We welcome reasoned debate about the future of the sector, which needs to be based on an appreciation of universities’ contribution to the common good.”
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