UK universities educate more national leaders than any other country, despite financial pressures, job cuts, and declining foreign student numbers, according to new research. A Jisc analysis found that in 2022, 50 world leaders had studied at UK institutions, placing the country ahead of the US (41), Russia (14), and France (6).
Oxford tops the list, having educated 36 heads of state or government since 1990, followed by LSE (24), the University of London federation (16), and both Cambridge and Manchester (13 each). Notable alumni include Finland’s president, Alexander Stubb (LSE), Antigua and Barbuda’s Prime Minister Gaston Browne (Manchester), and Namibia’s first female president, Netumbo Nandi-Ndaitwah (Keele). Reigning monarchs like Japan’s Emperor Naruhito also studied in the UK. Indian leaders such as Jawaharlal Nehru (Cambridge, Inns of Court), Dr. B.R. Ambedkar (LSE), and Manmohan Singh (Oxford) are also among the distinguished UK-educated figures who have shaped India's history.
Sector leaders argue this highlights the UK’s global influence through education. However, financial instability threatens the sector, with nearly three in four English universities projected to run deficits by 2025-26, according to the Office for Students. Rising costs, tuition fee stagnation, and a decline in international student applications exacerbate the crisis.
Vivienne Stern, CEO of Universities UK, called the findings a testament to the UK’s soft-power influence, urging greater support for higher education. Jisc CEO Heidi Fraser-Krauss echoed this, emphasizing the impact of UK graduates in global leadership.
Meanwhile, Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson defended recent government decisions, stating reforms were necessary to stabilize the sector and enhance opportunities for students. Despite these challenges, UK universities remain a crucial force in shaping world leaders.
Journalist and historian Shrabani Basu spoke to Asian Voice in depth about this.
She said, “Gandhi, in particular, was very influenced by his time in the UK. He travelled to study law in 1888 at the Inner Temple in London and was called to the Bar in 1891. Not only did the workings of the British legal system give him a sound base for his future career in South Africa as well as in the freedom struggle in India, he was also influenced by many other factors in the UK.
“He had taken a vow to be vegetarian and joined the London Vegetarian Society and made his first nervous speech to the society. It would slowly train him in public speaking. He even wrote an article in the Vegetarian newspaper. In London, he met theosophists and those dissenting against the British government. He was particularly influenced by the Suffragettes, who were fighting for votes for women, and followed their methods of protest. The Suffragettes refused to pay taxes as a form of protest. They would go on hunger strike in jail. This would later be the foundation on which he built his Satyagraha movement and practise of hunger strikes.
“BR Ambedkar studied at the London School of Economics and famously went on to draft the Indian constitution after Independence.
“Dadabhai Naoroji arrived in the UK in 1885 to work with the Parsee business firm Cama and Company. But he soon left the company and became a Professor of Gujarati at University College, London. In London, he was stunned to see the wealth that had been accumulated from the colonies and became the proponent of the “Brain Drain” theory, stating that colonialism was draining the wealth of the colonised countries. He became a campaigner for Indian rights while in London and founded the East India Association and London Indian Society. He became the first Indian to take a seat in the House of Commons when he won the seat of Central Finsbury in London for the Liberal Party in 1892. Naoroji influenced Gandhi and other Indian political leaders and was known as the ‘Grand Old Man of India’.
“Rabindranath Tagore travelled to London and had a long-lasting friendship with the artist William Rothenstein, who introduced him to W.B Yeats and other authors like Ezra Pound, George Bernard Shaw and H.G Wells. At gatherings at Rothenstein’s house in Hampstead, Yeats and Tagore would read their poetry together. It was at the urging of Rothenstein and Yeats that he translated his book of poems, Gitanjali, into English. The book was published in 1912, and Tagore was famously awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1913. Without Rothenstein and Yeats, this may not have happened.”
