Foreign students bring substantial benefits despite standard political economy concerns about job competition or public entitlement use not applying here. Governments face increasing pressure to cap their numbers in North American and Western European countries, including the UK.

Method & Design: We conducted a nationally-representative survey experiment in the UK to identify potential activators of anti-immigration sentiment regarding higher education.

Findings: The key result reveals that public support for caps on foreign students is most strongly activated when citizens perceive international students competing with domestic ones for limited university admissions. This perception, regardless of actual benefit data, appears to significantly drive restrictive attitudes.

Why It Matters: These findings suggest that framing debates about globalization in higher education through competition narratives may be more effective at mobilizing opposition than emphasizing benefits alone.