In business and administrative studies 83% of postgraduates were from overseas and in social studies it was 73%.

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He said UCL's increasing focus on research followed a massive increase in the number of postgraduates at the university in recent years.

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However the number of full-time postgraduate students starting their first year remained static at 207, 665, resulting in an overall fall in first-year postgraduates of 5%.

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And these figures do not take into account postgraduates, non-British undergraduates, or undergraduates who preferred not to identify themselves as belonging to a specific ethnic group, he added.

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The Big Daddy has long been the Rhodes Scholarship, founded in 1902, which offers postgraduates a year of study at Oxford in England, in any course they choose.

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Oxford is considering increasing the proportion of overseas students from 7% now to 12% in 2008, and the number of postgraduates (who pay more) from 5, 400 now to 7, 000.

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The Mitchell finances one year of study at institutions in Ireland and Northern Ireland for up to 12 postgraduates each year, and the program is about more than simply academics.

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Push researchers looked at all the debts, apart from mortgages, accrued by students at different stages of study around the UK, including some on longer courses such as medicine, and some postgraduates.

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Thanks to millions chipped in by Li Ka-shing (No. 9 on the billionaires list), Robert Kuok (No. 104), brothers Ronnie and Gerald Chan and others, Yau's institutes have trained hundreds of postgraduates.

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