ANALYSIS
Getty Images, portrait by Peter James Field
The world’s most precious resource is
talent. Countries that can nurture it or attract
it will out-compete those that can’t. Britain is
extremely well-placed in this regard. Our best
universities are globally renowned.We speak
the world’s lingua franca.More of the world’s
brightest students want to study in Britain than
in any other country besidesAmerica.
This can bene t the UK in several ways.
Because they pay higher fees, foreign students
subsidise the education of the native-born.
They also enrich it: British students who
mingle with foreigners are exposed to a wider
range of ideas.And foreign students create links
between Britain and the rest of the world.
Some stay to work in the UK, where they
are exceptionally enterprising. (Overall,
immigrants are 70%more likely to start a
business than the native-born, according to
one survey.) Other foreign students return
home with fond memories and an address
book full of British contacts.That makes them
more likely to trade with or invest in Britain.
While researching a book on this subject
I found countless examples of how powerful
the network e ects of migration can be. People
who experience two cultures often combine
ideas from both to make something better.
For example,Devi Shetty, an Indian doctor,
studied heart surgery at StThomas’Hospital.
When he went back to India, he combined what
he had learned here with the mass-production
techniques of a car factory and created the
cheapest heart hospital in the world.His
doctors perform bypasses for one-tenth of the
cost of the same operation in a rich country.
Yet the British government is trying to limit the
number of foreigners who study here, shutting
out future Devi Shettys.That makes little sense.
Robert Guest
is the America editor for The Economist
and regularly appears on CNN and the BBC. He is
the author of The Shackled Continent: Africa’s Past,
Present and Future and Borderless Economics:
Chinese Sea Turtles, Indian Fridges and the New Fruits
of Global Capitalism.
Foreign students
create links
between Britain
and the rest of
the world
THE INVESTOR
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