Alex Phillips discusses international students at UK universities

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Vice-chancellors in England and Wales say they have to take more undergraduates from countries such as China and India to boost their coffers.

They claim the existing fees, frozen at £9,250 since 2017, will be worth only £6,000 by 2025.

The number of Chinese students is said to have risen by over a third since 2017, while reports claim there are 13 per cent fewer UK undergraduates.

In five years, income from foreign fees has jumped from £19billion to £23billion.

More than half the London School of Economics and University College London intakes are said to be from abroad.

Vice-chancellor of Gloucester University Stephen Marston said he and others wanted talks on a “long-term viable funding model”. Sir David Bell, of Sunderland

University, warned tuition fees had to increase if universities were to continue – even at the level they are at now.

Despite a UK shortage of doctors, around 85 per cent of British medical school applicants are rejected.

Renowned cancer specialist and Daily Express columnist, Professor Karol Sikora, said there was a “moral obligation” to train more UK doctors. He said tuition fees should be raised to £12-£13,000, keeping them in line with inflation.

Former Tory minister Sir John Hayes said: “Our higher education system is not the HE wing of the Chinese Communist Party.”

But the Department for Education said the presence of foreign fee-payers “actually supports the creation of more places for domestic students, not fewer”.

It said UK students account for 84.3 per cent of the undergraduate population.

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