Refugee & Asylum Seeker Access to Higher Education: Snapshots from the UK, the US and Malaysia

Key takeaways:

• There are visible barriers for refugees to access higher education within the US, UK and Malaysia. These obstacles primarily pertain to admissions processes and refugees’ life circumstances.
• Across these contexts, there is a lack of consistent public effort to support refugee access and success within higher education.
• There is also a lack of tangible data available in each country on the access, participation and experience of refugees in higher education, which is essential in order to track progress towards the UNHCR’s goal of 15% enrolment of college-eligible refugees by 2030.

Introduction

As of 2019, almost 80 million people around the world had been forced to flee their homes; a staggering number that continues to increase. At the same time, the UNHCR has recently announced its target to enroll 15% of all college-eligible refugees in tertiary, technical and vocational education and training by 2030. Currently, only 3% of refugees are able to do so. Therefore, the exploration of refugee and asylum seeker access to Higher Education is an issue of increasing concern.

In this blog post, we adopt a comparative lens on access to higher education for refugees and asylum seekers in the United States, United Kingdom, and Malaysia. Snapshots from these contexts provide insight into refugee experiences across continents. This comparison brings to light great variation in host countries’ provision of tertiary education opportunities for refugees. Indeed, commonalities are unearthed as well, specifically the lack of comprehensive data available on the access of refugees and asylum seekers in higher education. These insights provide a descriptive analysis of each country’s context, offering a view into the needs of refugees & asylum seekers if we are to improve their integration into higher education.

United Kingdom

As of 2018, just over 126,000 refugees and about 45,000 asylum seekers were in the United Kingdom (UK). Refugees in the UK are allowed to both work and study. Universities categorise them as ‘Home students’, which means the same tuition fee as UK citizens apply to them and they also have access to government student loans. By contrast, asylum seekers are usually not allowed to work, are assigned accommodation and receive a stipend of just over £5/day. They are allowed to study, but this right can be restricted by the Home Office under certain circumstances. Universities categorise them as international students, which means they have to pay much higher tuition fees and are without access to the government’s student finance system.

It is difficult to determine exactly how many people with refugee or asylum seeking background have actually engaged with Higher Education in the UK, as data on student enrolments by refugee and asylum seeker status is not readily available. This lack of concrete data makes it harder to track trends, enable research on the issue and target university initiatives.

To support identification of students with refugee or asylum seeking status, the UK’s online centralised university application service, Universities and Colleges Admission Service (UCAS), recently added questions regarding applicants’ refugee or asylum seeker status for postgraduates. There are also plans to start adding these questions for undergraduates in upcoming years.

While their exact number is unknown, it is clear that refugees and asylum seekers face many obstacles when attempting to access Higher Education Institutions in the UK. In a recent study, Agata Lambrechts identified barriers related to the organisation of the university system. She finds that refugees and asylum seekers are not sufficiently informed about available opportunities and how to apply; the online application process is complicated and requires documents that refugees and asylum seekers cannot easily access; and refugees and asylum seekers continue to face significant financial barriers (including application and tuition fees). These hurdles are exacerbated by the fact that some refugees and asylum seekers have few social networks that could help them understand the university and application system. All these factors, Lambrechts concludes, means that refugees and asylum seekers face a “super-disadvantage”.

To overcome these barriers, over 70 universities offer different types of financial support to refugees and asylum seekers, with some universities also actively reaching out to them. For example, Birkbeck University in London launched the Compass Project, which includes workshops and events for refugees and asylum seekers who wish to pursue Higher Education. Sixteen universities have received the ‘University of Sanctuary’ status by the national charity City of Sanctuary, “due to their commitment to creating a culture of welcome for people seeking sanctuary within, and beyond, their campuses.”

These initiatives are laudable and necessary, and should be highlighted as such. However, these efforts must be increased and scaled, as well as researched and evaluated further. Universities should take a hard look at their application requirements and how these put refugees and asylum seekers at a disadvantage.

United States

Although the United States has a history of welcoming immigrants, refugees, and displaced people, the data on the number of refugees and asylum seekers currently in the country is difficult to pinpoint. The closest representation of refugees and asylum seekers is the resettlement to the United States data compiled by the UNHCR. The numbers of resettled refugees have drastically decreased since the 1980s, with a total of 30,000 in 2019. The refugee resettlement statistics, however, cannot be confused with the number of refugees in a given country as in 2019, only one in 500 refugees was resettled worldwide.

The United States has enacted more repressive policies since the 1990s. For instance, resettlement in the United States now has an additional set of procedures attached to UNHCR screenings, a process that takes two years. US law and legislature seems to vary on immigration and refugees depending on the political climate and foreign policy. Recently, the 2019 Refugee Protection Act was introduced by Democratic Senator Leahy, which extensively lays out definitions, protections, and resettlement information including the right to education. However, there is no available progress on this bill, or other similar ones, moving through the legislative process. This may be in part due to the Trump Administration’s clear disdain for asylum, evident through tracked actions to end asylum.

In terms of higher education, data on the number of refugees and asylum seekers studying in universities in the United States is virtually non-existent. This paucity of statistical data in itself poses a barrier to higher education access as refugees and asylum seekers do not have the support that public awareness and governmentally acknowledged data provides.

Comparative and International Education expert, Bernhard Streitwieser, focuses on the integration of refugees in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in recent research. Several interesting insights emerged from his work with regards to education and refugees in the United States. Once refugees are settled, they are considered domestic students, which has positive and negative repercussions. With fewer legal status barriers, accessibility to fee waivers and tuition reductions is possible. However, domestic status means that universities remain unaware of their previous experiences, residual traumas, or current needs, rendering US refugees in higher education policy invisible.

United States HEIs attempt to address the needs of refugees and respond to the constrictive immigration policies, yet this is dependent on individual university ethos and financial standing. There are also a variety of higher education refugee scholarships available.

In the United States, national, state and local governments have distinct roles; tensions emerging across political tides then create great complexity. Bearing this in mind, it is important to recognise that university initiated interventions can only support displaced people to an extent. Sustained government policy and reform will then be vital to refugee and asylum seekers’ successful integration into HEIs.

Malaysia

Malaysia, in stark contrast to the UK and the US, is a non-signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and its 1967 Protocol. This has created the legal foundation on which refugees within the state have minimal opportunity to formally acquire education. At the same time, Malaysia is also the largest refugee hosting country in Southeast Asia: with at least 178,990 refugees and asylum seekers registered with the UNHCR, over 100,000 of whom are Rohingya. Many of these refugees are “allowed” to stay in the country because their presence is assumed to be temporary or transitory. This stands in tension to higher education, which is often positioned as a long term and “durable” solution.

Since refugees and asylum seekers have no status in Malaysian law, they are treated as illegal immigrants. This means, whilst Malaysian citizens can enroll in government-funded education institutions, private institutions require passports and visas, a requirement most displaced community members cannot meet. Education provision for these communities therefore tends to be ad hoc and inconsistent, exacerbated by limitations in resources available to providers of non-formal education, many of whom are refugees themselves.

Aside from the absence of a legal framework of security, lack of documentation and heavy financial fees often imposed by universities are cited as key obstacles to refugees acquiring tertiary education. In fact, up until 2015, no refugee in Malaysia was able to access higher education; “it was impossible for a refugee or asylum seeker in Malaysia to pursue any kind of tertiary education”.

Recent initiatives have acted to alter this narrative. The creation of CERTE (Connecting and Equipping Refugees for Tertiary Education) aims to support young adult refugees “through knowledge and resource sharing, a bridge course, school readiness preparation and mentorship”. CERTE is supported by Open Universities for Refugees, UNHCR Malaysia and non-government agency Fugeelah. Its mission is centered on quality education opportunities for refugees globally and for international universities in Malaysia. An essential player herein is Monash University Malaysia School of Business, who continue to curate programs that aim to empower refugees’ tertiary education. Their working relationship with the UNHCR, for example, has seen the creation of the Social Protection Fund (SPF) program, supported by Teach for Refugees (T4R), acting to provide grants and training to community-based organisations who provide refugees with educational opportunities.

These efforts have seen 48 refugees in Malaysia now able to pursue university education. However, limited educational opportunity and stability is exacerbated by and linked to refugee realities of unreliable income, exploitation and consistent threats of detention and deportation. Far more must be done to enable opportunity at scale. Although Higher Education Minister Jusoh has enunciated Malaysia’s “role to provide inclusive education” for refugees, comprehensive state action on the matter is yet to be seen. The incentives to follow through, however, are far-reaching: if education provision for refugees is on par with Malaysian citizens, this will likely contribute RM 6.5 billion annually to Malaysian GDP by 2040.

Conclusion

Through this exercise of comparison, we observe that refugees face extensive barriers when attempting to access tertiary education, including legal and financial obstacles. Across these contexts, this ties specifically to the lack of consistency in state efforts to support refugee and asylum seeker access to higher education, leaving it instead to individual institutions to create opportunities. This leaves the international community far from being able to realise the UNHCR’s goal of 15% of displaced peoples accessing tertiary education by the year 2030. Finally, tangible data needs to be more systematically garnered across host countries and utilised to measure progress, inform policy reform and implementation.

Note: This blog post has been written by Rachel Siegman, Simren Sekhon and Isabelle Schäfer. It has been edited collaboratively by The Maple Group’s Editorial Board. For more information on the authors, please visit ‘Our Writers’ section.