It is well-known that Jaguar Land Rover is one of the UK’s most successful companies. Rescued in 2008 from the clutches of Ford - infamous for launching a new ‘Jaguar’ on a Mondeo powertrain - Tata, the diversified Indian group have done wonders first with Land Rover and more recently with Jaguar. Success has come from a stream of beautifully-engineered new products, intelligent premium brand marketing and a powerful export drive. As the Guardian recently commented “Jaguar Land Rover has been held up by ministers as a poster child for British manufacturing, and is one of the UK’s largest exporters, with about 80% of its revenue generated from cars sold abroad”.

It is less well-known - in fact it is probably not known at all - that a single international student who comes to study in the UK for a year is worth more to the British economy than a single exported Range Rover. Research by Oxford Economics for Universities UK, argues that “taking their university payments, off-campus spending, and the spending of their visitors together, international students generated £25.8 billion in gross output in the UK in 2014– 15.” Around 80% of this figure can be attributed to the 312,000 students from outside the EU studying in the UK in 14/15. Do the maths.

Jaguar Land Rover is a beacon of success in a manufacturing sector, which now contributes just 13% of UK GDP. Higher education is a beacon of unsung success within the services sector, which now makes up 80% of our GDP according to the FT. Oxford Economics reckon that higher education accounts for 33%+ of our business and professional services exports.

So why is Jaguar Land Rover held up as a ‘poster child’ by British Government ministers, while the Tory Manifesto promises that if re-elected, the Government will ‘toughen the visa rules for students’, ‘expect students to leave the country at the end of their course’ and that ‘overseas students will remain in the immigration statistics’, ’within scope of the government’s policy to reduce net migration’. When all the evidence suggests that visa over-stayers number less than 2,000. Rather like Grammar Schools, the Prime Minister has produced a solution looking for a problem.

So who can we blame for this state of affairs? The about-to-be-obliterated UKIP? The Daily Mail? The fact that the products of HE are intangible, not bright shiny cars. The need for blue collar votes in the Midlands and North? Or should we blame ourselves? For a failure of lobbying. A failure to make the economic case. A failure to engage directly with the British public, shortly going to the polls.

Donald Trump is doing a great job increasing foreign applications to Canadian universities. Let’s hope that whoever is elected in the UK on June 8th learns lessons from this. And is reminded by our Vice-Chancellors whenever they get the chance, that one non-EU International student is worth more to the UK economy than one exported Range Rover.