Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, what estimate she has made of the income to the public purse from international students in each of the last three years.

The department does not collect or estimate the impact of international students to the exchequer. International tuition fee income at higher education (HE) providers can be found on the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) at: https://www.hesa.ac.uk/data-and-analysis/finances/income.

The benefits and costs of international HE students to the UK economy and the Exchequer can be found in the Higher Education Policy Institute/Universities UK International/Kaplan report at: https://hepi.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Full-Report-Benefits-and-costs-of-international-students.pdf.

The total net impact on the UK economy of the cohort of first year international students enrolled at UK HE Institutions in the 2021/22 academic year was estimated at £37.4 billion across the duration of their studies. The economic impact is spread across the entire UK, with international students making a £58 million net economic contribution to the UK economy per parliamentary constituency across the duration of their studies. This is equivalent to £560 per member of the resident population.