It's an open secret that UK universities are propped up by international students paying crazy fees(as much as £35k/year) to come and study here, and most of them are from China. Even when I did my CS Masters degree at a Russel group university I'd say half of the course was international students paying full fees, I was repeatedly told by professors that they are vital to funding of the Computer Science school and university as a whole(which is insane considering how much home students are paying, but I digress).
Anecdotally - some of them(definitely not all, not even a majority) - clearly didn't care about actually learning anything, they just spent the entire day in the lab playing LoL or didn't actually turn up. In a private conversation with our professor he said he's basically not allowed to fail them even if they don't turn anything in, the funding they get is far too important. And they still have to somehow produce an MSc thesis at the end to get their degree, so in the eyes of the university they are still passing correctly to get their degree.
Either way - UK universities are too dependent on that funding to risk angering China which can easily make it a pain to go to UK to study.
Much has been said about China’s influence on Western universities, yet Qatar’s footprint in the American higher-education system[0] should not be ignored. It is one of the five largest donors to American colleges and universities, surpassing deep-pocketed contributors such as China and Saudi Arabia[1]. Even the president of the Brookings Institution resigned amid an FBI probe into Qatar-linked lobbying[2].
Consequently, when someone attempts to publish material about Qatar, particularly regarding its role in financing Hamas, they often hit a wall. As one case illustrates, “the editorial team has an issue with the fact that they have an upcoming partnership in December with Qatar. One of the directors flagged it as problematic and felt it might put them in a delicate position, so they prefer to run another piece with a lighter touch on the subject. Sorry.”[3]
Coming from a developing country where Islamists and anti-Western propaganda are pervasive, it is surreal to witness Western institutions falling, one by one, under the influence of autocratic and religiously extremist governments. This is where Western civilization appears to be declining: not because of “America First” politics, but because of low birth rates and an education system increasingly shaped by cash-rich foreign actors whose values diverge sharply from Western liberal principles.
What exactly is this Qatari influence on american society supposed to imply? There is certainly no party movement that is accepting of islam, let alone willing to take the (very popular) footing against Israel. If they refuse to comment on funding Hamas, surely this would still be more popular than explicitly funding the IDF, no?
The international student Harry Potter experience economy model is not actually working for British universities. If your idea of a university is: outputting high quality research and developing the next cohort of researchers/other talented people who go into industry, etc.
Another lesser problem is the half-baked REF system.
We’ve known that China has been doing this for years to UK universities.. Significant numbers of foreign students are Chinese and universities rely on foreign students for income.
The UK Gov funding of universities does not cover their operational costs. I am not sure how we silently got ourselves into this position but the fact is that without foreign students the universities will run out of money. It's strange to me as some of these universities have portfolios of property in the billions of pounds. I would have thought more industry collaboration and smarter use of property could generate income for the universities. Unfortunately there are many high tech well funded industries that get constant campaigns against them on campuses, mostly by students not even in a related field.
I'm not sure how you fix this. The UK is sleep walking into becoming irrelevant.
Dubious anti-China "research" meant as propaganda and China blocking the university page and asking to not continue this "research" is now intimidation. The UK and especially the BBC has been THE hotbed of anti-China misinformation.
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[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 38.1 ms ] threadAnecdotally - some of them(definitely not all, not even a majority) - clearly didn't care about actually learning anything, they just spent the entire day in the lab playing LoL or didn't actually turn up. In a private conversation with our professor he said he's basically not allowed to fail them even if they don't turn anything in, the funding they get is far too important. And they still have to somehow produce an MSc thesis at the end to get their degree, so in the eyes of the university they are still passing correctly to get their degree.
Either way - UK universities are too dependent on that funding to risk angering China which can easily make it a pain to go to UK to study.
Consequently, when someone attempts to publish material about Qatar, particularly regarding its role in financing Hamas, they often hit a wall. As one case illustrates, “the editorial team has an issue with the fact that they have an upcoming partnership in December with Qatar. One of the directors flagged it as problematic and felt it might put them in a delicate position, so they prefer to run another piece with a lighter touch on the subject. Sorry.”[3]
Coming from a developing country where Islamists and anti-Western propaganda are pervasive, it is surreal to witness Western institutions falling, one by one, under the influence of autocratic and religiously extremist governments. This is where Western civilization appears to be declining: not because of “America First” politics, but because of low birth rates and an education system increasingly shaped by cash-rich foreign actors whose values diverge sharply from Western liberal principles.
[0]: https://www.fdd.org/analysis/2025/04/02/qatars-footprint-in-...
[1]: https://quincyinst.org/research/soft-power-hard-influence-ho...
[2]: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/brookings-president-res...
[3]: https://quillette.com/2025/10/31/the-qatar-problem-hamas-isr...
Another lesser problem is the half-baked REF system.
I'm not sure how you fix this. The UK is sleep walking into becoming irrelevant.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45790447