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Comment by kasbah | Hacker News Reader

Nice little bit of criticism of the Hackney council and I like the summary of the startup scene in general:

  A common pattern in startups is to go to work for one, 
  watch it implode and team up with a colleague or two to 
  move on to another startup; repeat several times until you 
  have agglomerated a bunch of people you know, like and 
  trust; then do your own startup with them.

The statement that foreign students paying vast sums to study in UK is an "education bubble" is made kind off hand though and I would love to hear Cory expand on that idea.

As far as I can tell this is on the rise and is central to most university budgets. What could happen to "burst" this supposed "bubble"?

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International students pay full fees here, whereas UK/EU students are subsidised somewhat. I don't know if international student fees are "central" to university budgets, in comparison with domestic fees and funding, but they're obviously very important. Increasingly so, in recent years, as domestic fees have gone up considerably, which has seen a decrease in home student numbers.

Anyway, the bubble would burst when the decreasing value of a UK (or any) degree is overtaken by the increasing cost of it. Bear in mind that the cost of a degree isn't just the tuition; the cost of living is substantial in the UK (particularly in London) and that's making the option of studying here less and less attractive.

Yes, I should have said "integral to university budgets" rather than "central".

The thing is, the perceived value of education is largely based around prestige. Unless the cost of studying in the UK suddenly sky-rockets or there is some scandal that damages the reputability of all UK universities there isn't going to be a "bust" scenario.

It just doesn't seem very likely. I can envision a slow decline but no sudden fluctuations. Maybe I am mis-interpreting what "bubble" means?

When I started uni, the home/EU fees were £1000 a year[1]. My friends in class who were applying as international (non-EU) students had to pay £24k per year to attend the same courses.

The Government did pay universities the "teaching grant" per home student, to top up the fees, but when tuition fees settled at £9k per year that number was chosen in order to eliminate most of the teaching grant[2], so assuming that universities were getting topped up to £9k per home student, foreign students were worth 2.5x the home ones.

I know for sure that the universities compete to get as many foreign students in as possible, which was why all the fuss when they revoked London Met's ability to give student visas - they were attacking their funding, basically.

[1] they have since tripled twice, although remember repayments are like a sort of tax (the government lends you the money in the first place, and you pay back 9% of your income above £15k).

[2] I think science students still get it and arts students don't, or something, because this government is insane.

Restricting the number of visas so that they go elsewhere would probably burst the bubble.

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