Any well considered opinions out there on the potential impact of Brexit on Oxbridge ?
Faculty have expressed worry due to 1° large European research grants no longer being available 2° Team work with major research centers in Europe will be more complicated 3° attracting international researchers will be harder (especially since there’s a concurrent proposed hardening of visas) 4° fewer European students applying (already a little visible).
@MYOS1634 , it’s hard to believe many of those fears will come to fruition though. Oxbridge has been around a long time and isn’t going anywhere any time soon. No doubt others will step in and take the place, eagerly, of any European losses?
As far as admissions go, I don’t think anyone should anticipate an easier time getting in. But I am not an expert.
European grants and cooperation are the two biggest concerns, because first ties will be severed, then they’ll have to be retied, and that may mean two or three years without grants, without linked access to European database, etc. This mostly affects postgraduates and especially researchers.
No, admission will not be easier. Standards will not change and they won’t have any trouble finding talented undergraduates from all over the world. However the number of Europeans attending, especially at the undergraduate level, will decrease, and thus there may be less cultural and geographical diversity.
Grants are the key concern, no doubt. A lot will depend how the EU and U.K. will treat each other’s citizens for employment purposes post graduation. I believe that restrictive policies will make some professional degrees less attractive.
Oxbridge has had trouble competing with the top and richest American Unis in resources for a while now, but they’ll always have a cachet among Americans that no other uni outside the US and few inside the US are able to match.
@Chrchill: “I believe that restrictive policies will make some professional degrees less attractive.”
It’s not as if the biggest draw of Oxbridge (among Americans) are their professional degrees anyway, though.
This has been an issue…especially in the STEM areas since the end of WWII due to a combination of a strong postwar US economy driving research, massive influx of topflight academics arriving as wartime refugees, etc.
Another possible factor is the lack of an alumni giving culture…especially among UK undergrad alums compared with their US/other nations’ counterparts.
I was shocked to hear from a speech the then Cambridge Chancellor gave at a Cambridge alum event a friend* invited me to attend with him that Cambridge’s entire endowment was a trifling fraction of what well-endowed private elite universities…especially HYP command.
Was more shocked to find her citing the fact Cambridge’s most generous alums are foreign grad students…especially Americans, Asians, and Middle Easterners. Not the undergrads and not the UK alums.
- Friend is a Cambridge grad alum.
Cambridge has been doing amazing things in STEM. Remains at the very top.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2017/02/19/exclusive-oxford-university-set-break-700-years-tradition-open/
Hoping this link works!
The large research universities in the UK are pretty desperate about the uncertainty and the threat of missing out not just on EU research funding but also connections and the status benefits the EU brought to both students and staff.
Europe had been moving towards a fairly integrated academic playing field (again, for both students and staff), with Oxford, Cambridge and a number of London universities absolutely on top of the heap. And being on top of the heap of just the UK again just isn’t the same as being top of the heap of an integrated area of 400 million people.
In future, students and staff from the EU will have to worry about funding and immigration status again, with the authorities already showing an abysmal track record on being horrible to EU nationals and their families trying to clarify their status after living, working and studying legally in the UK for decades.
Until now, top universities in the UK were incredibly competitive for the best of the best in Europe, especially in comparison the the US, reliably cheap for students, and with an open job market and benefits not just for students and staff, but also spouse, children etc. In futures, the EU applicant pool will shrink dramatically, because most of the top students from the EU will not be able to afford the overseas tuition fees, and there are no funding options (no grants or financial aid) with the incredibly rare exception of students winning full scholarships in their home countries to go abroad.
Their applicant pool for both students and staff from overseas will shrink to the kids of the wealthy and staff they will be able to wrangle attractive exceptions for.
Of course they can still compete with US universities for top students and staff from India, China and Africa…without being able to offer comprehensive financial aid the way the top US universities can. It remains to be seen which country will be more competitive in attracting overseas talent with the recent uptick in racist and xenophobic sentiment in both countries.
All of this with a background of shrinking state support and rising costs for both home and overseas students. They will have to make some pretty hard choices regarding finances and academic integrity at some point, I believe.
Probably a good situation in the future for overseas students from wealthy families, including from the US. But they always had it good.
Probably a sad situation for everyone else.
I tend to agree. US students will continue to gravitate to Oxbridge. Although the admissions requirements, especially testing, for undergrads, is quite onerous. US students will not suddenly gravitate to France or Germany.,not the least due to language issues. We may actually see more continental European schools offer international programs in English precisely to be more attractive to US students. INSEAD has started with this years ago., But I fear Brexit will reshape the European higher education and research scene for Europeans, and this to Oxbridg’e detriment.
INSEAD has been English-language since forever.
The winners will be Canada and Australia depending on geography.
Canada 's already winning big.
@Tigerle: "Probably a good situation in the future for overseas students from wealthy families, including from the US. But they always had it good.
Probably a sad situation for everyone else."
If by “everyone else”, you mean EU kids. Internationals never got fin aid from Oxbridge anyway and UK kids at least won’t have to compete with EU kids for slots now.
@PurpleTitan Yes, the biggest letdown is for highly capable but low and middle income EU kids, because they will have lost access to some of the best universities in Europe. (You may have guessed my own bias here).
But there will also be drawbacks for UK students, and no benefits that I can see. Admission will not be easier! Don’t forget that university admissions in the UK are standards based, not comparative - in order to even get an interview, you will have to demonstrate mastery by producing As and As in your A-level exams, and no one cares about whether your schedule was more rigorous than anyone else’s or whether you are In the top one or top 10 percent in your high school or whether you have achieved state or national levels of recognition in an EC not related to the subject you are applying for. Even if low and middle income EU students are removed from the equation, these standards will not change, and they are a bigger hurdle than competition from EU students ever was. Don’t even dream about applying for a STEM subject without an A in maths. They don’t care if your high school only offered maths up to trigonometry. I expect places that would have formerly gone to EU students to be filled by other highly capable students from overseas - but only those who can pay.
But I think things will get even harder for low and middle income UK students. The universities overall will lose access to EU funding, which I can pretty much guarantee you will NOT be offset by the UK government, certainly not once the economic effects of losing access to the Single Market really kick in, and they will have to look for others sources of revenue - such as tuition fees.
Enter even more full pay overseas students from places like India and China. UK students may find themselves competing with students who do not have better qualifications, but bring more revenue.
It’s my understanding that EU kids pay “Home” fee level tuition, same as kids from the UK.
After Brexit they will likely become international students and their tuition costs will rise.
http://www.undergraduate.study.cam.ac.uk/international-students/fees
@OHMomof2: Indeed, by “International”, I meant non-UK and non-EU.
Yes, for UK and EU students both, Oxford and Cambridge used to be an incredible deal. Even home tuition fees have been rising for years now, though, and once they jump to overseas levels for EU students, it will be pricing most EU families out of the market. The trouble is that as public institutions dependent on public funding, they can’t decide on offering tuition discounts to overseas students they want due to their qualifications, the way US privates can. And merit scholarships are few and far between.
I wonder whether it will turn out to be a situation like Cal Berkeley, with Californians complaining that the most capable kids in California are losing out to full pay OOS ann international students simply for the revenue. And I wonder whether it will hurt them academically and ultimately in research rankings. I agree with churchll it will not detract from their prestige In the short run.
I doubt it’d hurt them in the research rankings unless this starts affecting graduate admissions…especially to doctoral programs or the academic level of undergrads admitted drop so sharply* that the Profs find their undergrad lecture/tutorial duties to be too bothersome a chore/diversion from their research and opt to leave for greener pastures.
- Say....if Oxbridge gets desperate enough for overseas full-pay students that they'd admit Barney the purple dinosaur** or students with similar demonstrated levels of intellect as undergraduates.
** Assuming he or his agents haven’t squandered the huge fortune he made with all those children’s shows, he shouldn’t have a problem paying for an Oxbridge education.
@cobrat: Considering that Oxbridge, while bigger than the top US privates, are still relatively small, I doubt they’ll have a problem getting students who can meet their standards.