An untrained brain drain?
In a recent post I commented on the press reports on the modest flow of English students to universities in continental Europe and the reverse flow of other EU students to the UK. The media seems extremely keen to report any international movement by students from the UK as evidence of a flight from the 2012 fee regime (at least for students from England). So, the Telegraph has a feature on British students turning to US Ivy League universities:
According to figures, Harvard had around 500 British applications to start courses this autumn, up from around 370 for last year – a 35 per cent increase.
Yale enrolled 36 British students onto undergraduate courses last year, up from 25 in 2009 – a 44 per cent rise. Five years ago, in 2006, just 15 students enrolled.
Some 197 students from England and Wales alone have applied to start courses at Cornell this autumn, up from 176 last year.
Information from Columbia University shows that 178 British students enrolled in 2009, up from 164 in 2008 and 151 in 2003.
Berkeley University, which is not an Ivy League college, has had 166 British applications for this autumn, compared with 130 last year.
To put this into perspective, there were over 630,000 applications through UCAS for 2011 entry to UK universities. And there were over 14,300 US students studying in the UK in 2008/09. This is, therefore, a drop in the ocean.
