By "substantially increasing international student numbers" during Covid, Scottish universities may have made more money than they had anticipated.
Most of the fee-paying international students, according to a University of Glasgow professor's study, were from Asia and Africa.
In comparison to other institutions, Glasgow University's income and student body increased more quickly.
The report's details have been contested by the university.
They were "willfully misleading," it claimed, and inaccurate.
According to a report by Prof. Sarah Armstrong of the Scottish Centre for Crime and Justice Research, during the pandemic, all Scottish universities saw enrollment increases from fee-paying international students.
According to the study, the number of international students admitted to the University of Glasgow will more than double between 2019 and 2022.
Depending on the degree program and level of study, the cost of international tuition can range from £22,000 to almost £50,000 per year.
The report issued a warning that tuition fees from international students were fast turning into Scottish universities' "primary source of income.".
It was discovered that Scottish universities received £1.17 billion from foreign tuition fees in 2021 and 2022.
The Universities of Glasgow and Edinburgh each made £482 million in revenue.
According to the data, this means that over that time period, the two universities received the majority (65%) of all international tuition fees in Scotland.
Concerns about relying financially on a "single, unpredictable source" were raised by Prof. Armstrong in the report.
Because some universities recruit much more international students than others, she claimed that this income was also distributed unfairly among Scottish universities.
All of Scotland's larger universities recruited and admitted more international students during the pandemic than they had before, according to the report.
Furthermore, it asserts that the University of Glasgow "pursued expansion of international student numbers and income more aggressively than most HEIs.".
However, the university deemed this to be "fundamentally untrue.".
It argued that it was unable to foresee the rise in student applications and offer acceptances for World Top 100 universities, which it claimed occurred "significantly while they declined in other parts of the sector.".
Glasgow implemented a dual start model that allowed students to start their studies at two different points in the year, similar to some other universities during the pandemic.
It claims that while increased tuition fee income resulted from these factors, it was not an intentional goal.
Universities make money from student housing and dining services in addition to tuition fees.
By enrolling in pre-course preparation programs, such as those offered through the University of Glasgow's collaboration with Kaplan International, international students can also rack up expenses.
These offer students from other educational systems a way to get ready for their studies at Scottish universities.
However, the University of Glasgow cited resources for financial aid and mentioned that government scholarships are one way for non-UK citizens to attend higher education in the UK.
In addition to issues with providing enough university housing, Prof. Armstrong, who has taught at the university, said that growing student populations have resulted in larger class sizes that affect learning experiences.
She stated on the Good Morning Scotland program on BBC Radio Scotland that the Office for Students, an independent regulator of higher education, wrote to 23 English universities to warn them against overly depending on international students.
Edinburgh and Glasgow now enroll more foreign students than 21 of those universities. The fact that there is little public discussion, little scrutiny, and little oversight of what is happening, therefore, worries me quite a bit. ".
Her report prompted debate over the morality of the high fees for international students to attend a prestigious university in the UK.
The data shouldn't, according to the report, "be misleadingly appropriated to feed racist, politically right-wing narratives (and behavior) about declining educational opportunities for students based in Scotland.".
Home students in Scotland have a wide range of university options, so the conclusion from this analysis should concentrate on the general expansion and changing power dynamics among and within Scottish universities as a place to start thinking about the implications for learning and working environments.
"Inequality within universities is a place to start, with some universities attracting the majority of the highest-paying students. ".
The University of Glasgow stated that in order to make up for the changes made during the Covid period, it was planning on much slower growth rates over the following four years.
"The serious misrepresentation within this report appears to be designed to undermine and denigrate the tireless and dedicated work of students and staff, rather than it being a serious analysis of higher education performance during and after Covid," a spokesman stated. ".
According to him, the report's "many assumptions are unfounded, its data is flawed, and its findings are unreliable," and the university did not actively pursue expansion during the pandemic period.
The report, he continued, "only serves to feed prejudices, particularly against our international students, rather than promoting fair debate.".
But according to Prof. Armstrong, the analysis's data "is completely based on public data that are reported by universities themselves to the Higher Education Statistics Authority.".
A spokesman for Universities Scotland told BBC Scotland that it was unfair to suggest that the initial financial warnings about the pandemic were overstated because they were accurate.
The sector's financial position changed as conditions changed, which they did at different points during the pandemic, and this was reflected in our communications, he claimed. ".
Due to "systemic underfunding of universities' contribution," he continued, there were still concerns about the sector's financial health in Scotland.
