Postgraduate students flood in from more nations

By Alan Osborn. As befits its high standing in the academic world, the UK draws postgraduate students from more than 150 countries, representing a high and steadily rising proportion of all students in British universities. In 2011-12 there were nearly 2.5 million university students in the UK, with more than 550,000 undertaking postgraduate studies – and nearly 210,000, or 38%, were from outside Britain, according to figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Only 54,000 international postgraduate students were from other European Union (EU) countries, a figure dwarfed by the 96,240 postgraduates from Asia, with the major shares represented by China (37,876) and India (21,765). Another 20,585 postgraduates were from Africa and 14,640 from the Middle East. Read more...