This year, over 500,000 people entered into British higher education whilst living abroad. For the first time, this figure exceeded that of students coming to the UK to study, which was 400,000, a 6.2 per cent decline on the previous year. According to the Observatory on Borderless Higher Education (OBHE), in 2011 there were a total of 200 international branch campuses offering degree courses and there are a further 37 scheduled to open this year.

Overseas offshoots of existing UK universities, collaborative provision and distance or flexible learning means there are now more international students gaining a UK degree outside of the country, than those coming to the UK to study, with Malaysia, Singapore and Pakistan having the most students enrolled. 

Proponents of the schemes say exported degrees can have many long term benefits. Higher education institutions, such as Oxford Brookes, which is now leading the way in international branches, can move away from the limitations of a single campus to, as Alex Bols, Executive Director of the 1994 Group explains, “cultivate meaningful, long-term relationships with overseas institutions”.

These relationships have the potential to support economic long-term growth, and create future business opportunities in emerging economies. Using the university’s name overseas can widen its profile, whilst also promoting the UK brand of first-rate higher education and supporting foreign policy objectives. Not only is this cultivation fruitful for the UK and the universities in question, but it also helps nations such as Indonesia and Brazil which, with fast growing numbers of young people, are aiming to modernise by educating citizens to a higher level. 

However, there are also said to be reputational risks involved with educational exports. Bols has said that these risks are “major… if it goes wrong – both for the institution involved and for the sector more generally”. Another key challenge to these exports is economic. A recent study by the Million+ university think-tank has shown that £7.6bn is associated with foreign students studying in the UK, with each student spending an average of £10,000 a year on fees, and almost the same again during their time here. The international student population also supports jobs in university towns such as Cambridge, Durham and Aberystwyth, provides domestic employers with a pool of highly talented graduates. For example, the top four subjects studied by international students range from business and administrative studies and engineering to creative arts and design.

In Cambridge, the international student population is 31 per cent, placing the university in 16thplace in the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) top 20 international universities. In the East of England as a whole these figures are mirrored, with 24 per cent of all students coming from non UK countries, exceeding the national average by 7 per cent. It is possible, however, that were universities such as Cambridge to establish international offshoots, towns could lose their high proportion of international students, through the process of enabling access to those previously unable to travel to the UK.

Speaking to Varsity, CUSU Access Officer Vicky Hudson said she would oppose attempts to offer Cambridge degrees overseas. “Cambridge is a residential University for a reason: the educational experience here is more than the formal teaching on our courses - it's about immersion in a unique academic environment, and all the extracurricular opportunities, academic and otherwise, that it brings”, explained Hudson. “By exporting Cambridge degrees we would not necessarily be able provide this environment, so our primary work should be improving access to our courses here.”

Concerns have been raised over how universities can monitor the distance learning student experience, prompting questions about how international offshoots are regulated. Anne, a masters student at the University of Nottingham, which has been given the Queen's Award for Enterprise 2001 and the Queen's Award for Industry and International Trade for its overseas campuses in Malaysia and Ningbo, says she is concerned about regulation. She is particularly concerned because a peer studying the same subject on an international campus “was set a single piece of coursework in a semester and was awarded a first, then achieved a 2:1 on her return to Nottingham”. However, the Quality Assurance Agency for Higher Education (QAA), which safeguards standards in UK universities, says it subjects international campuses to rigorous quality control, ensuring the work is still marked in the UK.

International exports are currently worth more than £14 billion and could rise to £27 billion by 2025, a £13 billion potential expansion, making up for the gap that a slump in international students will leave if the downward trend continues. In his keynote speech on international higher education, Universities and Science Minister, David Willetts said he wanted to “see investors from Britain and abroad helping our universities access these big overseas markets”, stating that companies such as Goldman Sachs are interested in investigating the possibility. Willetts added that, with the USA, France and Australia all expanding their global outreach, “British higher education must not be left behind”.