London MET: Is higher education door too easy to open?

With an intake drawn from more than 150 countries at last count, London Metropolitan University has long been a magnet for overseas students attracted not only by the world-class reputation of Britain’s higher education system but the prospect of studying in one of the world’s most multicultural cities, writes Ben Quinn for The Christian Science Monitor.

Yet last week the university was forced to launch a legal action that goes to its very survival, following a decision by authorities to strip the 164-year-old institution of the right to admit students from outside the European Union. Thousands of students now face deportation after the UK Border Agency found that more than a quarter of a sample of students did not even have permission to stay in the country. The university, which enrols 30,000 young people including some of the UK’s poorest, has vowed to defend its reputation.

Amid street protests by distraught students, as well as claims and counterclaims that the university has been, variously, badly run or the victim of a confused regulatory framework, the controversy has led to tensions between a university sector eager to preserve the lucrative overseas student industry and a shift by the British government towards a more hard-line approach to immigration.
Full report on The Christian Science Monitor site