How do either of those count as an export? If someone is educated in the UK, and then leaves to work in another country that's a loss - the UK has "paid" for their education, but they are in another country paying that country's taxes etc?
Did I misunderstand you?
You do.
It costs money to get an education here, we sell that to foreign interests, as such we export our HE.
Some see it as us importing others students, but normally when you import you pay them for the product, not the other way round, so the only description is that we export our education.
In terms of us then loosing those we educate, that's certainly true, but from a Universities POV, the bottom line at the end of each year is VERY important, without money they simply don't work, they can't hire the best researchers or offer the best facilities to entice them, and they can't afford the best buildings to entice the students.
It's sad but universities have been forced to treat their students as a commodity, just one factor in the overall equation that makes them float each year. Given the figure of foreign students on some UK HE courses can be as high as 50%, it is indeed one of our great remaining exports.
EDIT: sorry pressed submit too early, WRT to loosing home grown talent, then I still see it as an export. We don't really lose them per se, they just operate in different countries. Take a look at Engineering consultancy as a nice example. Have a look at major building projects around the world, then see where the core team who design and develop them are from and ultimately are based, and many times you'll find it to be the UK. The same is true of many other highly skilled consultancy areas. We educate them here, there's no work for them here as we won't pay their prices, so they sell their expertise elsewhere, but often are based in the UK. Unfortunately even this is starting to change though as people base themselves outside of the UK's economy too...
