International students support universities in the US and Europe

In the United States, the GI Bill was passed to help World War II veterans acclimatise to civilian life. One of this law's most important components was providing the military with access to an affordable college education. This had the effect that from the 1950s onwards, the number of people with a university degree increased considerably. Education went from being a privilege of the rich to becoming a constant for most Americans. As a consequence, this access to education had the effect of increasing the middle class, thereby changing the economy from blue-collar jobs to white-collar jobs.

However, as the US economy moved from the factory to the office during the 1970s and 1980s, blue-collar jobs also became less desirable. This forced companies to relocate their factories outside the country, with the added benefit of cheaper labour and fewer government regulations. This meant that, by the 1990s, most fashion-related production, such as textiles and clothing, was no longer made in the United States or Europe; it had moved mainly to China and India and then to Southeast Asia. This change in production brought a wave of money to these countries, effectively changing their economies and facilitating the birth of their own middle classes, as well as the fortunes of many.

Over time, new Chinese and Indian entrepreneurs and their children and grandchildren became the fastest growing segment of consumers in the world. Not only did they buy more things, but also more people went to college. For those who could afford it, attending the best schools in London, Paris and New York, especially to study fashion, was the main goal. These schools were considered the top choice for design and business education, offering well-known brand names on the curriculum.

As most of these students paid full tuition, as they could not access national funding schemes or scholarships, schools such as the London College of Fashion and the Fashion Institute of Technology took notice. They began marketing directly to these students and offering them simplified admissions. Many schools even built satellite schools in China and Korea to expand their market penetration in these areas. This significant increase in international student earnings coincided with a fall in national birth rates, providing the perfect antidote to the decline of the incoming student population. By the 2000s, it was not uncommon for top university classes to be 50 percent, or more, international students. This reality became especially evident when Covid-19 hit, and students could not go abroad to study. In the summer of 2020, a little-known US law that required students to be on American soil to hold a student visa became big news when education was primarily delivered on Zoom. Universities like Harvard, Yale, and NYU were about to lose a large and valuable student population, so they banded together and forced the Trump administration to change course. Across the ocean, Brexit also created confusion within education, suddenly turning European students into international students and reshaping admissions.

A year later, many higher education institutions focused on bringing students back in person, on campus. While this decision was complex, especially with the new variants, much of it was to re-attract international students. Without their tuition, schools knew they would be in dire financial straits. And without them, they would lose their key profit centres, like dorms, cafeterias and other services. In fact, domestic students are much more likely to take classes online than international ones, as they are likely to have a job while going to school.

However, the Covid pandemic has also created more transparency regarding the education industry and its reliance on international students. China announced some of its strictest rules in decades on how international universities can attract students to China, limiting access to online education, tutoring and content in general. Although politics has much to do with these changes, Chinese universities have in many ways "caught up" with European and American schools, offering a wide range of fashion programs at top-tier institutions. There is growing pressure for students to stay home to study.

In short, universities are being forced to rethink who their student body will be both in the near future and in the long term and may no longer be able to rely on Asian students to sustain or finance their growth. For many institutions, this may require reconnecting with local students and markets and perhaps even downsizing their operations.

Wait next week for the next instalment in this series dedicated to fashion education. We'll look at how fashion-related graduate programs have proliferated, why there are so many, and what are the ramifications.

This article was originally published on FashionUnited.es and it was translated by Andrea Byrne.