that British teaching was high-quality, that the professors at British universities had international reputations as leaders in their fields – and, crucially, that alumni of British universities enjoyed a level of professional success on return to their homeland that made them the envy of their generation.

UK universities and colleges are continuously evaluated by professional bodies to ensure that their teaching and resea

Can a quarter-million of the world’s brightest students be wrong? That’s one estimate of the number of foreign students who forsake the comforts of home and brave the UK’s food and, for many, forbidding weather to get the postgraduate education they consider the key to a bright future in their homelands.

The British Council puts the total number of overseas students currently studying in Britain – at all academic levels – at nearly one million, with two-fifths of post-graduate students hailing from other countries. The British government’s increasing recognition of the value of this phenomenon to the British economy overall is likely to increase its efforts to attract these students away from competing institutions in other countries and to address the complex student-visa laws that most overseas students cite as the greatest – and often the only – disincentive to seeking graduate degrees in the UK.

Studying in the UK, rather than at comparable universities and colleges in other countries, clearly remains the first choice of the largest segment of the overseas student population.

The principle reason can be summed up in the single word the 23-year-old Uzbekistanian Tulkin Sultanov gave the BBC as his reason for pursuing advanced studies in the UK: “reputation.” Worldwide, UK universities are renowned for their high academic standards, cutting-edge educational facilities (particularly in the sciences, engineering and the arts), and broad range of offerings combined with the flexibility to accommodate individual student needs.

Like many other students who eventually go to the UK itself, Sultanov was educated in a British school in his homeland. As a result, he said, he knew both that British teaching was high-quality, that the professors at British universities had international reputations as leaders in their fields – and, crucially, that alumni of British universities enjoyed a level of professional success on return to their homeland that made them the envy of their generation.

UK universities and colleges are continuously evaluated by professional bodies to ensure that their teaching and resear

at nearly one million, with two-fifths of post-graduate students hailing from other countries. The British government’s increasing recognition of the value of this phenomenon to the British economy overall is likely to increase its efforts to attract these students away from competing institutions in other countries and to address the complex student-visa laws that most overseas students cite as the greatest – and often the only – disincentive to seeking graduate degrees in the UK.

Studying in the UK, rather than at comparable universities and colleges in other countries, clearly remains the first choice of the largest segment of the overseas student population.

The principle reason can be summed up in the single word the 23-year-old Uzbekistanian Tulkin Sultanov gave the BBC as his reason for pursuing advanced studies in the UK: “reputation.” Worldwide, UK universities are renowned for their high academic standards, cutting-edge educational facilities (particularly in the sciences, engineering and the arts), and broad range of offerings combined with the flexibility to accommodate individual student needs.

Like many other students who eventually go to the UK itself, Sultanov was educated in a British school in his homeland. As a result, he said, he knew both that British teaching was high-quality, that the professors at British universities had international reputations as leaders in their fields – and, crucially, that alumni of British universities enjoyed a level of professional success on return to their homeland that made them the envy of their generation.

UK universities and colleges are continuously evaluated by professional bodies to ensure that their teaching and resea

– disincentive to seeking graduate degrees in the UK.

Studying in the UK, rather than at comparable universities and colleges in other countries, clearly remains the first choice of the largest segment of the overseas student population.

The principle reason can be summed up in the single word the 23-year-old Uzbekistanian Tulkin Sultanov gave the BBC as his reason for pursuing advanced studies in the UK: “reputation.” Worldwide, UK universities are renowned for their high academic standards, cutting-edge educational facilities (particularly in the sciences, engineering and the arts), and broad range of offerings combined with the flexibility to accommodate individual student needs.

Like many other students who eventually go to the UK itself, Sultanov was educated in a British school in his homeland. As a result, he said, he knew both that British teaching was high-quality, that the professors at British universities had international reputations as leaders in their fields – and, crucially, that alumni of British universities enjoyed a level of professional success on return to their homeland that made them the envy of their generation.

UK universities and colleges are continuously evaluated by professional bodies to ensure that their teaching and resea

.” Worldwide, UK universities are renowned for their high academic standards, cutting-edge educational facilities (particularly in the sciences, engineering and the arts), and broad range of offerings combined with the flexibility to accommodate individual student needs.

Like many other students who eventually go to the UK itself, Sultanov was educated in a British school in his homeland. As a result, he said, he knew both that British teaching was high-quality, that the professors at British universities had international reputations as leaders in their fields – and, crucially, that alumni of British universities enjoyed a level of professional success on return to their homeland that made them the envy of their generation.

UK universities and colleges are continuously evaluated by professional bodies to ensure that their teaching and resea

that British teaching was high-quality, that the professors at British universities had international reputations as leaders in their fields – and, crucially, that alumni of British universities enjoyed a level of professional success on return to their homeland that made them the envy of their generation.

UK universities and colleges are continuously evaluated by professional bodies to ensure that their teaching and research standards and their facilities are at the highest standards. The result has been the more important rating by the rest of the world, which at this point assumes that any British post-graduate education is top rank. Because standards are now known to be high at all levels, an unrivaled prestige attaches to a master’s or doctoral degree earned at a British university.

Of the half-million Chinese students studying abroad annually, some 50,000 have chose the UK as their academic destination of choice, together spending an estimated ?550m a year on their UK educations. Twenty-two-year-old Lin Disheng, a Chinese student featured in another BBC story, followed his BS degree from Nottingham University (where he earned first-class honors in e-commerce and digital business) with a master’s degree programme at Oxford. Citing China’s rapid industrialisation and economic growth, he told the BBC, “Chinese young people like me want to make a contribution to this rapid process. That's why I want to study In the UK - to learn better western technologies and experience the western culture and do the best I can.”

It goes without saying that the students who are accepted into British universities are the top students of their home countries’ top universities. Still, for most, what amplifies the education they received at home can be summed up in the three words independence, creativity and self-reliance. These are not only qualities they pick up at the personal level – although the mere process of adapting to, and then succeeding in, a culture often significantly unlike their own gives them a level of self-confidence they might well not even need in their homelands.

More to the point, a UK graduate e