Apologies for the delayed reply. A break down of my fees are 14k for my course (Engineering) and 5k for college fees.

However for the college fee, I'm getting a weekly room cleaning, college formals (weekend dinner + wine) and free access to sports facilities. I pass these off as being fair since it would probably cost the same amount at other universities.

The British Parliment hasn't tabled the fee motion yet, but it's the consensus here that any subject under the science fee will continued to be subsidized.

As it is, some schools' international students' fees increase by ~1000 pounds per year already, going up 7.2% from this year to 2011/2012. Others do and can increase by more.

The government is referring to sciences, but is less sympathetic towards mathematics in social sciences. Mathematics is kind of a science wherever you put it, but mathematics for/with/in economics, statistics, econometrics, possibly computing, financial engineering etc suffer when it comes to budgets. Of course many schools have the "critical" science, health, engineering, medicine etc so they get funding anyway.

@Corad you're right, because if someone was in London, the catered room rates would be close to 5000-6000 a year before the extra stuff you mentioned. But these are optional, and it's less for non-catered, and even less for outside London.

6.2 Since the introduction of Tier 4, there
has been a requirement that prevents students
on courses below degree level from being able to
stay in the UK for longer than three years. There
is presently nothing to prevent those studying at
or above degree level from extending their stay
indefinitely. We need to ensure that all students
understand that Tier 4 is a temporary route, with
the expectation that students should return home on
completion of their course.

We have considered whether, as an
alternative, we should extend to degree level
courses the rule which prevents sub-degree level
students from staying for more than three years.

If I were registered, I certainly would have voted Labour or Lib Dem. Why did a Malaysian politician urge Malaysians to vote for the Conservatives?

Yes, it might seem so. But the brain drain, while intrinsically against the imperatives and objectives of the country, are in some cases wholly good for those individuals or persons who have chosen to relocate.

Yeah, Lib Dems have let people down. But are people going to ever be satisfied with their governments? When Labour was in force, they were disliked. Obama was touted, and now the Americans have forgotten how enthralled they were by him initially? Do policies mean anything?

I cannot recall who, but a blogger noted his name. It is very recent (I believe Dec 2010), and can be found via Google.

The section goes on further, they are planning to scrap the post study work route after Jan 2011. I'm not even sure whether people will be allowed to stay 3/4 months or 2 years afterwards to look for work. The most deserving would have probably found employment prior to completing their education, I suppose.

The feeling i get from this is that the current british gov is somewhat ambivalent about student immigration........

it is well know that students who immigrated into the country of their education benefit the recipient country.........the country gains a young worker, well educated and familiar with the country, likely of high intellect, and likely to contribute a lifetime of labour to the country, including taxes.........

on the other hand, it is well know that less qualified (and less desirable) students do get in as well, under the cover of such student migration pathway.........

it's this later bit they are trying to close......

the question is, how to close entry for 'low level' immigrants, while allowing 'high quality' immigrants to come in.....

perhaps the british gov could learn something from the aussies, who have a long history of taking in significant immigration, and usually selecting the best........they didn't get it right all the time, as is seen in the recent change in policy (they have the same issues with people coming in to study languages, diploma, trade certs etc, and staying on), but they have generally been successful in taking in young well trained immigrants in the skills based part of the programme (independent skill based and region/employer sponsored migration accounts for 70+% of all migration)...........

why anyone would want to actually migrate permanently to uk, however, is another question.......

Its not a bad thing what the current government is trying to do. During the last government (Labour), border checks were lax, resulting in mass immigration of peoples of the sub-continent into the UK.  This is done via 'backdoor' thru bogus marriage scams and private colleges. These colleges purportedly teach 'english'. They pay about £500 - £1000 to get a letter from the college to be used to obtain a student visa from the home office. They can simply renew their visas several times. I know of many indian co-workers here in UK using this route. Whilst some are genuine students, most just get a visa just to work. Duirng the boom times this was ok as jobs were plentiful. But nowadays joblessness is on the rise and the locals are up in arms and its become a national scandal. As a result the crackdown now affects the larger international student population.

However, I don't see how this affects Malaysian who are high quality, university students. For a bonafide student, the visa process is straight forward and painless, except the cost of applying for a visa has risen greatly. I paid nothing when I first came to UK. In fact, I did not even have to apply for a visa. You show your unconditional letter from your uni and some information regarding your finances, and get a stamp on arrival at Heathrow. I got three years straight away. If you are planning to come to UK and stay on AFTER your studies, i.e. get a job and hopefully gain PR, the rules have now been tighten. Again 'high quality' students are not directly affected, for eg. doctors and scientists which are sought after. Good luck to those planning to further their studies here. Any questions you can pm me.