‘UK varsities prefer less qualified Indians’

LONDON: For the Indian students seeking admissions in top universities of UK, being a little less qualified than their British counterparts may no longer be a problem, thanks to the power of purse.

Some top-ranking UK universities are willing to accept applicants from India and China who are less meritorious than those from Britain, according to a report. The cash-strapped universities are bending the rules to admit international students who, unlike British students, pay the full £27,000 fees for an arts degree.

Admission tutors for different undergraduate courses at Edinburgh, Manchester and Sheffield would be prepared to accept an international applicant who had failed to achieve the normal A-level requirements for their course. The tutors who thought they were talking to the guardian of a Chinese student studying A-levels at a top private boarding school in England - said international students did not always have to meet the academic rules that applied to other applicants.

One vice-chancellor said that overseas students were displacing home students at some of the top universities which did not physically have the space to expand. “The government has created a perverse incentive that means international students bring in more money than UK students,” he said.