Source | International Education Horizons
ID | FindingWIE
Author | Xiong Liang
At the beginning of September, the city government of Birmingham suddenly declared bankruptcy, and the nerves of students and parents studying in Birmingham or paying attention to the University of Birmingham were instantly touched.
Why did the city suddenly go bankrupt? Will my child interrupt studying abroad after bankruptcy? What impact will it have on families who want to study abroad?
In recent years, we seem to have witnessed too many history-making moments, and the world is constantly facing various crises, so what challenges will they face for international students scattered overseas? And how to survive the crisis?
As the second largest city outside London, Birmingham's declaration of bankruptcy is significant. According to the official Section 114 notice, the main funding gap for Birmingham's bankruptcy came from the Equal pay claim more than a decade ago.
Screenshot from "Article 114 Notice"
In 2010, female workers in Birmingham sued their employers: under the same cleaner job, men could earn £51,000 a year, compared to only £12,000, and women were paid less than a quarter of men's. In addition, male employees have additional bonuses, while female employees have no money.
Such a pay system is deeply gender-discriminatory, and the Birmingham government has incurred huge compensation for it. While £1.1 billion in compensation has been paid over the past decade, there is still a gap of £650 million to £760 million.
According to The Guardian further, the debt is growing at a rate of £5 million to £10 million a month. The city of Birmingham could no longer afford the compensation, which became the trigger for the city's bankruptcy.
Screenshot from The Guardian
Of course, Birmingham's financial pressure does not only come from the "equal pay compensation case", more economic factors we will not delve into too much for the time being. However, at the social level, what is the direct impact of urban bankruptcy is a topic that many people will pay attention to.
From the moment the bankruptcy is officially announced, it means that the money will not be spent on things other than the basics. According to an interview with Birmingham residents by a reporter from China Business News, the "Article 114 notice" only restricts new government spending and has no significant impact on current life for the time being.
However, due to the consideration of "open source and cost reduction" in the future, the Birmingham government may increase the tax burden and reduce tax incentives, which will undoubtedly put a great operational burden on enterprises. When it falls on individuals, the job market will be overcast, so economic income, social stability and other aspects will be greatly affected.
With a general understanding of the Birmingham bankruptcy, we moved on to the perspective of international students to see the impact of the event.
With 6 universities, Birmingham is also a "piece of the highland" of British higher education. According to data from the 2020/2021 academic year, the University of Birmingham (ranked 84th in the QS world in 2024) has 4,650 Chinese students, accounting for almost half of the total number of international students. So, how will Birmingham's bankruptcy affect international students?
The University of Birmingham immediately made a statement on Weibo: "The University of Birmingham is a completely independent institution, independent of the City of Birmingham, and we independently manage the income and expenditure of funds and other businesses. ”
Screenshot from the official Weibo of the University of Birmingham
According to the University of Birmingham's official breakdown of revenue and expenditure, government support accounts for only 9% of the university's £749 million revenue. It is worth mentioning that the school's main source of income is tuition, which accounts for more than half of the total income.
The screenshot is from the official website of the University of Birmingham, click to view a larger image
From this, we reached a preliminary consensus: there is a clear "three-eighth line" between British universities and the government. At the same time, there are rumors that "in order to save the government's financial crisis, university tuition fees may increase." To test the credibility of this claim, the relationship between UK universities and government needs to be explored at a deeper level.
In the book "Power Coordination and Checks and Balances in British Universities" published by Peking University Press, it clarifies the relationship between universities and governments under different histories, stages of economic development, and different rulers.
- On the one hand, "the government still regards universities as an important force in the country's economy and competitiveness, and the government has a responsibility to help universities cope with international competition in higher education and improve the quality of teaching and research".
- On the other hand, "the Government has also committed to reducing the level of management of higher education and appropriately reducing the external evaluation of universities".
In general, the government, while partly a provider of higher education funding, needs to help universities fulfill their mission. In fact, the power of universities is increasing; Universities that rely less on municipal governments at the funding level have relatively greater autonomy.
The University of Birmingham has sufficient financial confidence to be independent of the city government, and the power of the school to recruit and award degrees is completely autonomous, which has little impact on the enrollment of international students. However, as a resident of Birmingham during the study period, the environmental safety of the local society and the job market will inevitably affect the student's study experience.
The bankruptcy of cities is not unique in either the UK or the US, and compared with the high degree of autonomy of British higher education, American public schools are significantly more dependent on the government, and therefore more susceptible to government "turmoil".
According to the book "From Approaching to Entering: An Overview of American Higher Education", the interpretation of American college income: "For public universities, the largest source of income is state grants, accounting for 24%, followed by student tuition, accounting for 20%. Tuition fees for private university students are the largest source of income, accounting for 40%, much higher than other individual sources of income. ”
Meanwhile, the top three spenders in most states are health care, basic education, and higher education.
As health care costs have risen in recent years, voters are demanding protections for basic education. Finally, if state finances are tight, only higher education funding will be compressed, so the alternative source of income for public universities is tuition revenue. Therefore, when American cities go bankrupt, skyrocketing tuition fees will become an inevitable trend.
The bankruptcy of Birmingham is easily reminiscent of Detroit, the "motor city" that went bankrupt in 2013, and Michigan, where it belongs, has seriously affected the economy and taxes due to the recession in the auto industry. In order to balance the budget, the state government has reduced its funding for higher education, and the revenue structure and development of state schools will face great challenges, which has also contributed to the continuous transformation of the University of Michigan (Reference: "Research on the Governance Model of the American Public University System", author: Xu Laiqun).
When the urban crisis comes, it is fortunate that it is not affected, and those who are deeply trapped in it are desperately trying to save themselves.
The new generation of students has been wrapped up in the times and witnessed countless historical moments - the economic depression and bankruptcy after the epidemic, the turbulence of the Russian-Ukrainian war, the threat to the life of Japan's discharge of nuclear sewage... Natural and man-made disasters have brought great physical and mental tests to overseas students, and what kind of education path do they experience?
01) Under the financial crisis, Anglo-American universities are now "closed tide".
Image from the Internet: Iowa Wesleyan University official website cease of operation announcement
In March this year, Iowa Wesleyan University, a private university founded for nearly two centuries in the United States, was forced by financial pressure to publicly announce on its official website that it would cease operations at the end of this academic year.
In the past three years, several universities in the United States have had to declare permanent closures. Halfway through studying abroad, what should I do if the school goes bankrupt and closes? It is reported that Iowa Wesleyan University will be taken over by the United States Department of Agriculture, and students who have not completed their studies will continue their studies in one of the four schools.
Although school bankruptcy and closure usually give students a reasonable placement, for international students, there is great pressure in academic adaptation and psychological adjustment. Therefore, perhaps in the future in the process of school selection, the financial situation of the applicant school is also an important reference standard.
The data comes from Forbes, which obtained the latest financial data from the National Center for Education Statistics to build the annual college financial ranking, covering the fiscal year beginning July 2020 and ending in June 2021. In total, 906 universities with at least 500 full-time students are ranked, and the top 30 schools are listed above. As you can see from the table above, schools with good financial conditions are usually well-known universities in the top rankings.
02) Study abroad in the war, epiphany in the survival crisis.
The bankruptcy of Birmingham and the closure of universities in the United Kingdom and the United States have brought more or less academic crises, but there is no shortage of ways to solve them. When truly facing the test of life and death, studying abroad has also advanced from the level of academic refinement to the level of percussion about life.
The documentary "A Long Journey" records the lonely youth of many international students, including the protagonist of the fourth episode, Zhu Xiaomin, an international student majoring in conflict resolution and mediation at Tel Aviv University in Israel.
In May 2021, the Palestinian armed group Hamas attacked several Israeli cities in an 11-day conflict that killed 244 people on both sides, including 67 children, according to news reports.
Screenshot from the documentary "A Long Journey"
In the face of death, nothing seems so heavy. In the dormitory, Zhu Xiaomin also witnessed the war with his own eyes, and came to Israel to study with such a great ideal as "guarding peace", Zhu Xiaomin looked for an answer to resolve the conflict in the war, "It is not a personal experience, who can feel the conflict between the two peoples so clearly?" Hundreds of people died, the trigger was just one house after another, and no one knows when they will rekindle the fighting. ”
Screenshot from the documentary "A Long Journey"
Epilogue:
As Zhu Xiaomin said in the documentary, "I know that this is just a journey of horses and flowers, complex borders, out-of-control streets, different choices, the real world has only unfolded, and the answer is still in the wind..."
Perhaps many international students' study life is very smooth, urban bankruptcy, university closure, border wars, "broken tiles of the city" may hit only a small number of people, the bankruptcy of a city in Birmingham The impact on international students is also dispensable, but when the moment of history comes, we will also trigger more thinking about society, studies and even life.