UK current account deficit at new high

arbtrader

if we sold some sort of over the internet course then perhaps but afaik a student coming here and paying £200,000 to tuition/rent/food just shows up as £200,000 of domestic GDP and £200,000 of capital inflows

Out,_Vile_Jelly

Lingua wrote: »

My uni already has a burgeoning foreign student population. It makes for a wonderful multicultural experience, but there has to be a balance between local and foreign students or (as has been witnessed nationally with immigration) you get a lot of pushback. I for one am happy to be able to go to a language cafe and hear a dozen languages and see so many mixing cultures, but not everybody is so liberal, even at 'liberalising' univerisites!

Also, the govt has removed the cap from uni admissions so I believe. They'll be welcoming plenty more students from abroad in no time, I'm sure, especially when they can get such high accommodation fees from them as non-EU students tend to have to stay in halls for the duration of their study due to visa requirements. Lucky them.

We have a high number of (extremely bright and hard working) Chinese students, paying juicy fat overseas fees. However, we are starting to get complaints that non-Chinese speakers are now being marginalised when the students work in groups on their final year projects, and that the imbalance is such that a mono-culture is developing on campus.

CLAPTON

cells wrote: »

The uk should aim to greatly expand its top 10-20 universities with most the additional space used for foreign students paying top dollar

And of course that is just one example of a 'virtual export'. Tourism is another with London now supposedly #1 or #2 in the world ranking for tourists.

Another would be retail spend by forigners. again apparently London is the worlds #1 non food retail sale city not exactly sure how that has happened but it suggests maybe some big spending tourists

Yet another example would be IP inside products like iplods that use ARM tech.

aren't we in deficit in terms of tourism and of associated shopping?

padington

Thrugelmir wrote: »

Still no sign of any improvement.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35931968

That's very bullish for property ( more low interest rates and possible QE ).

CLAPTON

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

We have a high number of (extremely bright and hard working) Chinese students, paying juicy fat overseas fees. However, we are starting to get complaints that non-Chinese speakers are now being marginalised when the students work in groups on their final year projects, and that the imbalance is such that a mono-culture is developing on campus.

off topic, but I recently attended a Masters degree award ceremony at a Russell group uni ; making highly bigoted value judgements , out of the 80 successful graduates about 5 were british

Thrugelmir

padington wrote: »

That's very bullish for property ( more low interest rates and possible QE ).

Not if people demand higher interest rates to lend the UK money. As a consequence tax will rise to compensate. Sticking plasters only last so long, not much use if the wound doesn't heal underneath.

kabayiri

Out,_Vile_Jelly wrote: »

We have a high number of (extremely bright and hard working) Chinese students, paying juicy fat overseas fees. However, we are starting to get complaints that non-Chinese speakers are now being marginalised when the students work in groups on their final year projects, and that the imbalance is such that a mono-culture is developing on campus.

I keep in touch with an ex colleague who is Chinese, and who spent time working and studying over here.

He went back and in more recent years lectured in technology over in China.

He does say that his Chinese students are "very driven". I suspect some it comes from strong family pressure to succeed.

mwpt

kabayiri wrote: »

I keep in touch with an ex colleague who is Chinese, and who spent time working and studying over here.

He went back and in more recent years lectured in technology over in China.

He does say that his Chinese students are "very driven". I suspect some it comes from strong family pressure to succeed.

There was a book I read which theorised on something, which at the moment I'm failing to recall the exact name of, but something like cultural memory or culturally inherited behaviour.

I remain very sceptical of it, so don't shoot the messenger, nevertheless the theory was that people retained a cultural memory somehow that shaped their behaviour even when removed from that culture. I only remark on this because one of the anecdotes was that Chinese had to be incredibly disciplined in previous times when working rice crops. Ok, I'm failing to remember why but something about the time of year being incredibly sensitive, the crop could very easily fail unless meticulous care was given, and they worked long long hours to do so. This somehow has resulted in Chinese excelling academically at the sciences due to this discipline and hard work (why it is those in particular I don't know).

Ok, so a bit of a vague anecdote but perhaps I'll go dig up some more info. I hesitate to go into this area though, it sounded too much like racial profiling to me.

mwpt

Ok, dug around, the book was Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.

Here is a take on the chapter:
http://www.litcharts.com/lit/outliers/chapter-8-rice-paddies-and-math-tests

I was a bit off with my recollection as it also mentions Asian culture and language exposing children to counting earlier than Western cultures.

As I say, don't shoot the messenger, but feel free to shoot down the message.

Thrugelmir

kabayiri wrote: »

He does say that his Chinese students are "very driven". I suspect some it comes from strong family pressure to succeed.

Wasn't so long ago that the UK was similar. My grandmother did 2 cleaning jobs to pay for my father's articles to be trained as a chartered accountant. If you wanted to better yourself. Hard work paid off.