The University was very disappointed by an article in today’s Daily Telegraph suggesting that UK Universities “reject British students in favour of foreigners”, and calling into question the actions of an overseas agent with ties to the University as well as other Russell Group universities.
These accusations are untrue. International students cannot, and do not displace UK student places. UK student places are capped by government. Universities recruit UK students up to those caps. Indeed if we exceed our allocation of UK students we would be fined. Recruitment of international students operates entirely outside these domestic limits.
In fact, in 2009-10 we increased our intake of UK students by 264 when we were permitted to do so by the government. In the coming (2012-13) academic year we plan to increase our intake of British students, who meet our entry criteria, in line with the government’s deregulation of admissions for students who achieve A level grades of AAB+.
All students applying to the University of Southampton must prove high standards of academic ability to be admitted onto our degree programmes. International students presenting A-level qualifications (of which there are very few from China) are given exactly the same offer by the University as UK students when applying for courses.
At the University of Southampton agents are not allowed to offer or guarantee places to potential students. For the 2012-13 academic year the University of Southampton has made twelve offers to students recommended by the agent referred to in the Daily Telegraph article. The lowest of four offers made for direct entry to one of our degree programmes is AAB. Eight of the twelve offers are for enrolment onto our Foundation Year, a pre-University year. Students joining our Foundation year are not enrolled on specific degree programmes, and can only progress if they meet the entry criteria on completion of the Foundation year.
Although the quality of our offers to students remains consistently high, we were very disturbed by the comments made by the agent, and as a result of today’s article, we have today suspended our contract pending the outcome of a review of the operation of the relationship.