Recommendation 50

Although international students do not seem to be staying away from Scotland like many had feared, commenters have noted that the pandemic has demonstrated just how vulnerable the current model is.120 Richard Lochhead MSP told us that “it has been a bit of a wake-up call for the institutions”.121 Whereas usually the SFC are most concerned about income of Scotland’s modern universities, the pandemic caused a situation where some of the “larger, more established institutions are much more challenged about their business model and about some of those exposures on international and commercial fees”.122 Dr Stuart Fancey, Director of Research and Innovation, Scottish Funding Council, told us that even before the pandemic the SFC “were having conversations in the higher education community about the overdependence of certain universities on particular markets” and that covid-19 brought home “exactly how quickly that can turn into a real challenge”.123 Impact of UK immigration policies on international student numbers