“Punitive media narratives” and being treated like “cash cows” are harming international students, with universities being urged to accept more of the blame for why new recruits might be ill equipped for academic or campus life.
Students being seen as “financial assets rather than pedagogic partners” frames the conditions they encounter when they arrive in the country, according to a study seeking to find ways to address these “structural issues”.
Workshops were held at four universities – De Montfort, Wolverhampton, Manchester and Manchester Metropolitan – in which staff repeatedly used the term “cash cows” – framing that was said to be “both accurate and deeply uncomfortable”.
“An institution that recruits students as a financial strategy and then tasks individual educators with the consequences of that strategy is producing a structural injustice, not a pedagogic problem,” the final report from the Collaborative Enhancement Project (CEP) concludes.
Participants spoke of an attitude towards those coming to study from overseas as “lacking language proficiency” and “lacking familiarity with UK academic conventions” and outlined a need for “dedicated support” for working with diverse cohorts.
