26th September 2012 9:00
By Blue Tutors
Results published this week rank UK universities as some of the best in the world. Cambridge, which came top last year, was ranked second in the global league table, along with UCL, Oxford and Imperial which took fourth, fifth and sixth places respectively. US universities MIT and Harvard took first and third place.
While there is much to celebrate for British universities this week, the news has provided an opportunity for those concerned about the government policies guiding higher education to warn that the UK may not fare so well in years to come. Ben Sowter from OS Research spoke out this week, saying that higher fees and new visa rules for international students could mean that UK universities struggle to maintain the top spots in the global league tables.
The furore over student visas is likely to have a significant impact, with just 40% of employers saying that visa regulations had helped them employ international graduates, compared with 70% globally. Critics of the government’s crack-down on student visas argue that students should be exempt from counting towards the country’s migration limits, which would allow the UK to expand its share of the international students market.