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[Dorsidwarf]

Even if theres political turmoil happening, all it takes is for the PM to be willing to act against Russia.

Outside of expelling some diplomats, maybe some sanctions, and whatever cloak and dagger activities, I don't see what they can about it anyway. Call the UN Security Council over it?

Nah, the real impact of Brexit is that the UK finds itself needed to negotiate market access to a bunch of countries, both to replace the EU trade deal its going to loose, and to cushion the loss of access to EU market. This mean, generally, that the UK can't really afford to antagonize anyone.

BTW, isn't it funny how a lot of people complained about the Queen potentially meeting Trump, but no one bat an eyelid when she meets the Saudi crown prince? Maybe the power of the awesome Saudi propaganda trucks?

I could have sworn there were a load of protestors when the Saudi prince showed up...

[smjjames]

Even if theres political turmoil happening, all it takes is for the PM to be willing to act against Russia.

Outside of expelling some diplomats, maybe some sanctions, and whatever cloak and dagger activities, I don't see what they can about it anyway. Call the UN Security Council over it?

Nah, the real impact of Brexit is that the UK finds itself needed to negotiate market access to a bunch of countries, both to replace the EU trade deal its going to loose, and to cushion the loss of access to EU market. This mean, generally, that the UK can't really afford to antagonize anyone.

BTW, isn't it funny how a lot of people complained about the Queen potentially meeting Trump, but no one bat an eyelid when she meets the Saudi crown prince? Maybe the power of the awesome Saudi propaganda trucks?

I could have sworn there were a load of protestors when the Saudi prince showed up...

I did see a few articles saying that people were objecting to the Saudi Prince's visit, didn't read to find out the reasons though. I'd guess that the reason why there wasn't as much an uproar over him visiting vs Trump visiting is that the Saudi prince hasn't been an asshole to a longtime ally (or is personally an asshole). The fact that he's actual royalty may also have a bit to do with it, dunno.

[Sheb]

I think a chunk of it is that you expect Saudi Arabian princes to be bastards. You don't expect the POTUS to.

Can't recall who on here said it, but it was something along the lines of "Houses being blown up wasn't news during the Blitz."

I'd see it more as a "hate heretics more than heathen" thing.

[redwallzyl]

Some Dutch universities are considering a halt on accepting foreign students.
Dutch universities have become so internationally renowned, that 210 of our academic studies now have more than half of their class filled with foreign students.
70 studies even have more than 3/4 foreign students.
Some of those come for a 1 year exchange program, but the vast majority are going to do the full 4 to 8 years here.

The TU Delft even broke national law by instating a full stop on students from outisde the EU for their bachelor of Computer Science and Engineering, because they had just too many applications.
This is illegal, but they got special permission from the minister of Education.

Dutch universities have become so popular because of their high quality, affordability, and because nearly all academic studies are taught 100% in english, contrary to universities in other EU countries like France and Italy.

For years, the internationalization has been promoted and encouraged by the universities, but now they fear it has gone too far.
Especially restricted studies with a numerus fixus are worried that national applicants will be ousted by foreign applicants. There's no evidence that this is already the case, though.

Universities have joined forces now and asked minister van Engelshoven to make a law that requires at least 50% of all spots for a studies be reserved for national applicants.

It is unlikely that the minister can comply though. Refusing students based on nationality is discrimination, and in contradiction with our Constitution.

Seems like tons of foreign students wanting to get in is a universities dream. So much money and so many high quality applicants.

[Sheb]

Not sure how expensive university is for non-EU citizen in the Netherlands, but it's not clear they make that much money.

Edit: a quick look seems to imply that non-EU citizen cover the cost of their education so 8000 or more a year. In this context, it seems a win-win benefits for the Dutch to get foreign students.

[smjjames]

Even if it's a win-win, they don't want to do it at the cost of pushing out national applicants, which is the main point of what martinuzz quoted.

[redwallzyl]

Even if it's a win-win, they don't want to do it at the cost of pushing out national applicants, which is the main point of what martinuzz quoted.

He did also they there was not actually cited evidence for that happening, just the assumption that it would be.

[Sheb]

Even if it's a win-win, they don't want to do it at the cost of pushing out national applicants, which is the main point of what martinuzz quoted.

It's not like universities have an absolute limit on size. Unless it's a sudden influx (which could be the case, for exemple if a bunch of EU students that were studying in the UK are afraid of Brexit, but martinuzz hasn't say anything about that), they can just use that sweet tuition money to expand.

[hector13]

BBC coverage of the Russian state-controlled media response to British media coverage of Skripal’s poisoning.

I for one enjoy the description of BoJo as “an infant in a man’s suit”.

[martinuzz]

Even if it's a win-win, they don't want to do it at the cost of pushing out national applicants, which is the main point of what martinuzz quoted.

It's not like universities have an absolute limit on size.

Well, they do in the case of a numerus fixus studies. For example, when I finished highschool, I wanted to become a vet (wanted that since I was five). But back then there was a numerus fixus on that for a maximum of 175 students per year. I got unlucky in the random lottery and didn't get in. So I went for a studies without numerus fixus, biology. Tried again a year later (propedeutic grade biology allows access to second year of veterinarian studies, so I wouldn't lose a year), but sadly I lost the lottery again.

There's more studies that are capped like that, simply because we don't want to train more vets, or dentists than are needed in society. Graduated academic veterinarians that have to work in uneducated jobs because there are no more vets needed anywhere is a bloody waste of skill and expensive education.
Excessive foreign influx can disrupt that system, because the numerus fixus is based on national job market, not global job market.

There's no research into the effects much yet, because the trend is pretty new, which is why I said there's no proof it actually does, but it's just rational though that will tell you that if (let's stay with the vet example) there's 175 student places per year, based on the national need of new vets per year, and more than 50% of those places are taken by foreign students, that return to their home countries to become a vet there after graduating, we'll end up with a severe shortage of veterinarians in the Netherlands.

Personally, I disagree with banning foreign students to solve the problem. Expanding capacity, and/or basing numerus fixus on EU or global job perspective would make more sense.
Then again, expanding a studies to have 150% capacity can't be done in just one or two years. Universities are limited by the amount of professors and other staff, and real estate.

[Jopax]

Even then, there has to be a cap on the max number of students for a certain area of study. Stuff like practicals, exams, lab workshops and similar can't get too big because it impacts the quality of education and you can't really just make more smaller groups because those need to fit the timetable of both available spaces and faculty to run them.

Places like Croatia have limited numbers for most unis, where a smaller portion of the total is open to any foreign students (EU or not) while the majority of it is for citizens only. Not sure if that's being changed anytime soon, but it's a pretty decent system, even tho it does have issues since it's mostly static from what I've seen. So you get shit like hundreds of economists entering the job market that can't really support them.

[Sheb]

Even then, there has to be a cap on the max number of students for a certain area of study. Stuff like practicals, exams, lab workshops and similar can't get too big because it impacts the quality of education and you can't really just make more smaller groups because those need to fit the timetable of both available spaces and faculty to run them.

Why, you can just hire more faculty. You just have to think of university education as an export industry, with the added benefits that you're training a whole bunch of university-educated people into knowing the Netherlands, which will increase business ties even if they go back.

Places like Croatia have limited numbers for most unis, where a smaller portion of the total is open to any foreign students (EU or not) while the majority of it is for citizens only. Not sure if that's being changed anytime soon, but it's a pretty decent system, even tho it does have issues since it's mostly static from what I've seen. So you get shit like hundreds of economists entering the job market that can't really support them.

I'm fairly certain they'd be open to EU citizen too, it's a EU thing that you have to treat all EU citizens equally for university. There might be limtiations for residents though.

To me, it just seems a bit dumb to try to regulate who study what if the student is bearing the cost (as with the non-EU students in the Netherlands). Let them buy the education they want, and just invest in giving prospective graduate info about jobs opportunity with various diploma so they can know what to study. Then, you can try to offer a limited number of subsidised spots if you want.

[da_nang]

Refusing students based on nationality is discrimination, and in contradiction with our Constitution.

Just call it "affirmative action" or "nationality quotas".

[Jopax]

Materializing faculty out of thin air isn't exactly possible just yet, as far as I know atleast. Most people that are educated enough are usually already working in the private or public sector where the pay is much better for less workload by most accounts. Assistants are easier to come by but even then, there's only so much you can do if you run out of space.

The thing with Croatia is that as far as I know, excepting some private unis, classes and all the materials are in croatian, not english, and most of the professors that I've had were ok with english, but I wouldn't say they could really teach in it, especially not some of the older dinosaurs that are still clinging to their tenured position.

[Teneb]

-snip-

While I understand having a cap on the number of students, the lottery part surprised me. If you don't want to oversaturate the market with professionals, then you should at least be selecting based on skill (by applying tests and letting those 175 best enter the course) rather than sheer luck.