Iraqi students left fee debts behind

Iraqi students still owe British universities thousands of pounds in fees from when they returned home during the Gulf war five years ago.

Bradford University, which had 34 Iraqi students in 1990, is trying to recover debts totalling over Pounds 100,000. Hull University has also reported problems with the payment of fees by Iraqis.

Before the Gulf War, Iraq was a leading supplier of students to British universities, sending more than 600 in 1989 to study for science and engineering degrees. This number plummeted to 187 in 1995/96, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency. Even this low figure is inflated by the number of Iraqi students who officially remain on the books, but who left campuses years ago.

Bradford is ranked as Britain's top recruiter in Iraq, with 15 students in 1995/96. Yet registry files reveal that only five were active postgraduates last year, a figure which has since dropped to three.

The remaining ten includes those who returned to Iraq during the Gulf war. One Bradford source said unpaid bills could still run into six figures.

Registrar Nick Buck said: "We have not recruited any new Iraqi students since the Gulf war because of the financial difficulties."

In recent years other universities have stopped recruiting from Iraq. According to HESA, several major international institutions, including Oxford and the London School of Economics, had no registered Iraqi domiciled students last year. But Home Office figures show that 80 Iraqis were given visas in 1995 allowing them to enrol on courses in science and engineering departments suffering student shortages.

More than one quarter were registered on sensitive engineering courses last year: electronic (17), mechanical (15), civil (14), electrical (3), aeronautical (2) and general (1). Other popular disciplines were chemistry (12), computer science (10) and physics (9). Only ten students opted for arts and humanities.