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Comment by flanked-evergl | Hacker News Reader

Not in a university in England on the UK tax payer's dime.

It's not on the UK taxpayers dime, quite the opposite. The higher fees that international students pay are used to subsidise the costs of educating UK students.

UK Universities receive taxpayer funding and students also drive down the wages for the poorest in the UK which then makes them more dependent on welfare benefits, and they will likely contribute less in taxes than they cost the state as the vast majority of net taxes (taxes minus benefits) are paid by the rich.

> UK Universities receive taxpayer funding

For research, and for taking UK students. NOT for taking overseas students.

Universities are private institutions that get paid by the state to do specific things. A few do opt out of this.

Overseas students do not cost the state anything. They are not entitled to any benefits. They are limited to working 20 hours per week.

According to the article, foreign students can be charged as much as the university wants. They're paying for it, bringing boatloads of money to the UK to rent, eat, study, and sometimes later work there

At least that's how it works in the Netherlands where I've looked into it, and that's with subdidies available for EU students who often don't stay here and don't contribute to taxes later. Source, in Dutch but the graphic near the top is a good summary, where the lower bars are "costs" (kosten) and the higher bars "benefits" (baten): https://www.cpb.nl/de-economische-effecten-van-international...

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