Fixing China's image in Africa, one student at a time

An African student in Guangzhou, China. Photograph: David Hogsholt/Getty Images

In Africa, China has an image problem. You've read the headlines: China is flooding our markets with cheap fakes; it is callously poaching our rhinos; it is building stadiums and roads that don't last a decade; it is undercutting our labour; it is stealing our diamonds; it is coming to colonise us all over again.

Some of this is sometimes true. Much of it is not, or not completely, the product of nervous imaginations and a well-founded fear of foreign nations who take from Africa more than they give. But image is not about substance, it is about perception; and, after decades of doing things its own way – consequences be damned – China is wising up to the importance of fixing its controversial image in Africa.

A few initiatives are worth noting. The expansion of Chinese media into Africa can't be ignored. State news agency Xinhua has become the largest wire service operating in Africa, while the Chinese public broadcaster's new Africa channel (CCTV Africa) is based in Nairobi with a full complement of African staff. Likewise, there has been a significant cultural investment in the form of Confucius Institutes (cultural and language centres designed to rival the British Council or Alliance Francaise) sprouting all over the continent.

In the long term, however, perhaps the most influential and certainly least examined initiative is the Chinese government's mammoth scholarship programme, which has grown exponentially over the last decade. There are an estimated 12,000 African students studying in China with the support of the Chinese government. This is an astonishingly high figure, dwarfing scholarship programmes offered to African students by any other country.

So, questions need to be asked: What are African students doing there? How are they being treated in China? And who really benefits? To figure this out, I askes a few African students who are actually there.

Sydwell Mabasa welcomes me into his room at the Communication University of China. He's clearly happy to see a fellow South African, and over a hot cup of Rooibos – "The taste of home," says Mabasa – we chat about politics and Oscar Pistorius and why exactly those textbooks aren't being delivered in Limpopo, his home province. I'm just happy to be inside. Beijing in winter is cold and blustery, the air so thick with smog that you can scrape trails of grime off your face with a fingernail. This is about as far from the warm, blue skies of Africa as it is possible to get.

Mabasa, who works in provincial government at home, is one of 21 African students on a new master's programme in international communication (almost all the scholarships are awarded at post-graduate level; the idea is to get people who are already well-educated and established in their home countries). He hasn't contributed a cent to his postgraduate studies, because China is footing the bill. The course is paid for, as are flights, accommodation, food and even a monthly stipend of $250. Not too shabby.

Neither is his room, a spacious studio with two single beds, a desk, a couple of chairs and an en-suite bathroom (on some mornings, students are even woken up with tea delivered to their door). It's housed in the 10-storey International Students Centre, a former hotel on campus where all the foreigners stay. "To prevent them infecting the citizenry with their foreign liberal ideas," jokes a colleague.

It's a flippant remark, but a serious issue: what kind of education can Africans really get in China, a country where censorship is rife and Facebook and Twitter are still banned? "The education system is good," Mabasa says. "Most professors who are part of this programme studied in the US and Canada and other areas. We get to explore both sides of the world."

His sentiments were supported by other students, all of whom say that the course presented both western and Chinese theories, allowing them to choose what they think works best. "There is a kind of framing sometimes, trying to push you into viewing the world in a certain light," said Saleh Yussuf Mnemo, from Tanzania. He's a journalist with experience at the state-owned Zanzibar Broadcasting Corporation, and also a lecturer at the Zanzibar Journalism and Mass Media College. Saleh says this "framing" is not unique to the Chinese: "Our education in east Africa was mostly influenced by the British, the French, the Germans. Now we are here we get a real insight into what the Chinese perspective is."

An woman walks with her child through a street near Xiaobei Rd, where many of Guangzhou's African migrants live. Photograph: Tania Branigan for the Guardian

For many of the students, understanding China is just as important as the education itself. There seems to be a recognition among young Africans that China is going to be around for a while, and that there are relatively few Africans who can relate to China at all. Europe and America are known entities, with deep cultural or historical ties to African societies, but China is still a mystery. To understand China – to be a China expert – is therefore a marketable skill which is valuable regardless of the content or quality of the degree.

This is encouraged by the university, which includes Chinese language, culture and history courses as part of the core programme. "It's kind of a life-changing experience for them," comments Professor Zhang Yanqiu, director of the African Communications Research Centre at CUC. She's also the resident coordinator for the African students in the communications programme, and helps organise trips and cultural experiences – excursions to Shanghai or the Great Wall, for example, or tours of Chinese broadcasters. "They know more about China. They know China personally."

Yanqiu admits that there's an element of self-interest in this. "Between China and Africa ... there is a lot of misunderstanding and misinterpretation of each other. But this programme offers a new channel for Africans to know what's happening in the real China… The students work like a bridge between the two countries."

But the real China is flawed and it can, at times, get in the way of the education. I went with the students to a lecture on new media, a fascinating topic in today's digital world. The lecture, in English, was sharp, and the discussion freewheeled between analysing the influence on public opinion of US political dramas such as the West Wing to the skills needed in crafting 140-character tweets. Except they weren't tweets, of course, because Twitter is banned; they were entries on China's heavily censored home-grown equivalent, Sina Weibo. Homework for the students, along with an impressive amount of reading, was to set up a Weibo account and start micro-blogging.

Easier said than done. "Whatever I say, they delete most of it," said one student, referring to the army of censors working in real-time to monitor the social network. Mabasa refers to the restrictions as "social networking with Chinese characteristics", a clever riff on the "socialism with Chinese characteristics" that forms the basis of the Chinese state's ideology.

Not that Twitter and Facebook are completely off-limits. Getting round the censors by using a proxy server is slow, but not difficult. I was able to access my Twitter via a simple Google search for "free proxy server", and students have even more sophisticated ways to evade the Great Firewall. Even some lecturers, who are employed by the state, have no qualms about telling foreign journalists like me to connect with them on Facebook.

Still, teaching a course on new media when the most influential new media sites – including Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and WordPress – are technically off-limits necessarily compromises the course. As does teaching classes in international journalism when media in China is similarly controlled and driven by the central government, and international news heavily restricted (the New York Times, for example, is unavailable in China).

When put to her, Professor Zhang accepts this criticism, but is quick to point out that the west has its own, different problems when it comes to the media. "We can see that western media reports on China and developing countries are not very balanced. For both the teacher and the student we need to balance the coverage. I think the developing countries are in one camp, they are not in the camp for western countries, so we should understand each other, pay attention to each other, produce coverage on each other and keep the information flow very balanced. Although it's hard to achieve, we have to help each other."

This is a refrain I hear again and again from Chinese academics and government officials: China and African countries are in the third world together, they are all countries discriminated against by the west; they are brothers or partners or whatever other word describes a friendly, mutually beneficial partnership between two regions of equal stature and development.

The China Central Television tower amid the Beijing skyline. Photograph: Ed Jones/AFP/Getty Images

Walking around Beijing, it's hard to buy this narrative. The city is modern, clean and efficient, with world-class public transport. The sheer number of glistening skyscrapers here is overwhelming, more than in the whole of sub-Saharan Africa combined, and they've all got electricity and running water. There is a conspicuous absence of the kind of obvious poverty that blights most African cities. Even the smog points to an industrial capacity that Africa can only dream of. Sure, this is just one city, but China's got plenty of other developed, industrialised metropolises: Shanghai, Shenzen, Guangzhou, Chengdu, Chongqing, to name but a few. Africa, as continent, has a lot of catching up to do.

"When I came here, actually it's quite different from home," says Saleh. "China has gone very far ahead. My expectation is that Chinese themselves can feel like maybe they are in heaven." Heaven might be stretching it, but the point remains: China and Africa are, quite conspicuously, not at the same level of development, no matter how often African and Chinese leaders express their fraternal solidarity.

This cognitive dissonance between the image projected by China in Africa and the reality experienced by students can generate feelings of wariness and caution. Gloria Magambo, who is a manager in the performing arts section of the National University of Rwanda (which is state-run, naturally. There is a theme here), found that her perceptions of China changed dramatically when she arrived in Beijing. "Before I came here, I didn't know much about China and didn't even fear China at all and didn't even care. But now when I know China and actually get to discover who they are and what they are doing that is when my fear is rising instead. Now I know more about China. I have discovered the strength of the Chinese, they are very determined people, and by studying their history I know that whatever Chinese want they can get it… People with such determination, if their inner motive is colonisation, we're in trouble, we cannot beat them."

To find out more about China's motivations as far as its African scholarship programme is concerned, I went to speak to Professor Liu Haifang at Peking University (it's always Peking University, not Beijing University, a mistake which got me hopelessly lost in the city's northern suburbs).

Peking University is China's oldest, and it shows; while there are plenty of the big utilitarian concrete buildings which dot other campuses, here there are also grand old halls, pretty frozen-over lakes and elegant footbridges which lend it an academic gravitas shared by some of the world's very best universities, like Oxford or Princeton. It also hosts its fair share of African students, some of whom are taught by Professor Liu, who also happens to be one of the leading Chinese experts on the educational links between China and Africa.

There are a couple of things she is eager to set straight. First of all, she says, it's important to understand that Africans have been coming to study in China for decades – and that there are plenty of African students who are here on their own initiative, without any government support. The figures she quotes take me by surprise: 18,000 self-supporting African students in China compared to the 12,000 on scholarships. And the more scholarships China gives out to Africans, the more Africans come on their own, thanks to word-of-mouth networks. (I met one of these self-supporting students. He is Kenyan, and was most bemused when his family sent him to study in China. His brother had been sent to the United States, but, he said, his mother didn't know which way the world was going and wanted to hedge her bets.)

Professor Liu said the central government is not the only driver of the scholarship programme. Increasingly, local governments and companies are seeing the benefits of expanding their ties with Africa and sponsoring a few scholarships is seen as a relatively easy way to do this.

But, overwhelmingly, the scholarship programme is still a central government effort, and Professor Liu is crystal clear about what's in it for China: "The benefit is image, image-building up among Africans. If there is a better image about Chinese government and its support of education among youth, then young people can come to work for Chinese companies and spread good messages to their community."

This makes sense. Joseph Nye famously coined the expression "soft power" to talk about the more intangible influences of culture and media in international relations. It's something America, with global icons like Hollywood, McDonald's and Michael Jackson has in spades, while many people would struggle to name five famous Chinese people. As China's military and economic might has increased dramatically over the past two decades, its soft power has not kept pace.

By training a new generation of Africa's best students, China hopes to change this and exponentially increase the number of people who feel that they understand China and would orientate themselves in China's direction – a necessary complement to China's ambitious economic engagement in Africa.

But, being China, it's doing it its own way – and it's something that Professor Liu worries could one day undermine the whole effort. Her concern lies in how scholarship students are chosen; more specifically, that attempts to introduce a unified, merit-based system to award scholarships have foundered. In fact, responsibility for selecting students is often delegated to individual African countries, meaning there can be large disparities in selection criteria – and creating a system that is ripe for abuse.

Although she was careful not to say it directly, Professor Liu implied on several occasions that in some countries, the process was not as transparent as it should be – and she was not the only one.

One researcher, speaking off the record, said that some Chinese diplomats use the scholarship programme as a carrot with which to reward cooperation from African governments. "The traditional mindset among some Chinese officials is that they still think the most important thing is to leave enough quota, enough scholarships, to give to special persons, the elites. They go to officials' children or special connections."

A customer tries out Chinese-made vuvuzelas at a shop in Yiwu in Zhejiang province. Photograph: AFP/Getty Images

The researcher added that this attitude is not always supported by the central government, who are taking a long-term view of the scholarship programme and what its benefits should be. "If you only give scholarships to so-called special relations, then you cannot keep the benefit at all. He will go, he will leave the relationship, and then you have to give to another person, and another person, and it can actually be a very bad cycle."

A rare publicised example of how this occurs was revealed by Namibian tabloid Informante in 2009. "High-ranking government officials are grabbing educational scholarships offered by China for their children and close relatives," wrote the paper. "Investigations show that high-profile figures ranging from former president and founding father, Sam Nujoma; current President Hifikepunye Pohamba; government ministers overseeing procurement of multi-million dollar deals with the Chinese government; senior military and several government officials are snatching the scholarships which are supposed to benefit mainly students from less privileged families for their children and relatives."

Four years later this scandal continues to dog the Namibian government. The country's main independent newspaper The Namibian recently published a strongly-worded editorial demanding some kind of inquiry into the abuse of scholarships, and The Namibian's editor, Gwen Lister, said she'd seen nothing to persuade her that the situation had changed.

The big question, really, is will it work? China's scholarship programme to Africa is remarkable in its scale and intent. At its worst, it's a brazen attempt to hijack the loyalty of Africa's ruling classes by going after its youth; at its best, it is a genuine effort to give thousands of Africa's brightest students the extended education they can't afford to get anywhere else, and prepare them for a world in which Africa's orientation will inevitably shift eastward.

Either way, it's a long game. The programme started in earnest in 2009, and most graduates are still in their 30s. China's selection criteria (favouring both previous work experience and, at times, political connections) means that, within the next couple of decades, many of these graduates are going to be in positions of power and influence. Their experience in China will leave them well-equipped to deal with Chinese businesses and officials, and perhaps favourably disposed to do so. They will also be in a position to tone down some of the hyperbole that dominates the China-Africa political discourse.

But China shouldn't expect to have it all its own way. "We'll be influenced by our time here, but that does not mean we'll be totally in favour of them," said Saleh, the Tanzanian student. "It's not like a father and child. We are the future leaders of our countries and we'll have to look for the future benefit of our countries. We know what we are doing."

This article was researched with a grant from the China-Africa Reporting Project managed by the Journalism Department of the University of Witwatersrand

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'Too damn high': graduates struggle with student loan debt | Katie Rogers

You've graduated, now welcome to paying back your student loans. Photograph: Thomas Barwick/Getty Images

From the fiscal cliff to the sequester, Congress has developed a talent for doing nothing while important deadlines pass. This time, student loan borrowers are feeling the brunt of inaction.

The interest rate on subsidized Stafford loans, the most common type of student lending distributed by the US government, has now doubled from 3.4%, a rate introduced in 2011 and extended regularly as a relief measure. Now, new borrowers face a 6.8% rate.

This might not seem like a big deal to those who believe the rate is already quite low compared with private loans (those rates hover around 9-12%, on average). But we live in an age of skyrocketing student debt and staggeringly few signs of relief. Most hope Congress will retroactively reverse the rate to 3.4% for new borrowers, which, thankfully, is still a possibility.

Interest rates comprise just one sliver contributing to the student loan crisis, but it's one that adds up. It's also a part of the process that many borrowers overlook (or don't fully understand).

If an informal survey of friends and colleagues is any indication, borrowers would rather just pay their monthly bill than consider the amount of money they're paying to borrow. A journalist told me on Twitter that he auto-pays the total amount he owes each month, giving no thought to the interest he's paying:

@katierogers definitely not, i tune all of that out and just pay what i'm supposed to. which is the smart method, obvi.

— Timdependence Day (@TimHerrera) July 2, 2013

Another responded with an estimated "4-something" rate. Another replied simply "too damn high".

Personally, I couldn't recall my own interest rate until this week's deadline passed, and then I realized my rate had been 6.8% all along, since I borrowed before 2011. I pay roughly $3,700 in Stafford interest each year. To put that another way, that's $37,000 in interest alone over the life of my ten-year repayment plan.

In the beginning, I borrowed as little as I could, none of it private, and made my way with Stafford loans and a Perkins loan. I took a work-study job and freelance work on top of my full-time course load. I refused unpaid internships, not because I wouldn't have loved the opportunities, but because I couldn't afford to. And this was just for graduate school.

I'm the first woman in my family to hold a college degree, made possible by my grandparents, and it has been key to my career opportunities. But I still graduated with a debt that nags me each month. I'm afloat, and I know that understanding how the interest rate on my loan works is my personal responsibility, as is paying off the loan amount. But every 30 days, I'm reminded of life choices I'll have to delay because of my education debt.

And I'm one of the lucky ones.

One friend racked up around $140,000 to finance a private education. She had to check before telling me that the interest rate on just one of her privately-held loans for $109,000 is 4.9% – roughly $53,410 in interest paid, if she clears the principal in ten years (unlikely). Another also had to check her rate before sharing it with me: a 6.8% rate on $90,000-worth of loans works out at $60,000 in interest over a decade.

So, while there's the opinion that a 6.8% loan rate is enough relief – students are risky borrowers, after all – the rate still becomes a mammoth strain for people struggling to find well-paying, full-time work.

My colleagues and I learned, after launching the Guardian's student debt project, that most borrowers aren't looking for a free ride. They want the dignity to pay off their loans – without being stretched too thin to pay rent or buy groceries. They want the full-time, paying jobs they expected would come with the degrees they earned.

In the end, it's the borrower's responsibility to pay close attention to the amount borrowed, as well as the interest rate for borrowing. But it's also the responsibility of our Congress to generate – and actually act on – viable relief options without turning loan debt into a partisan issue.

Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts has made this a key cause. Her first bill, the Bank on Student Loans Fairness Act (pdf), would allow students to borrow at the same rate at which banks borrow money from the Federal Reserve: 0.75%. A more modest proposal from Senators Tom Harkin (Iowa) and Jack Reed (Rhode Island) is for the 3.4% interest rate to remain in place for two more years. There's surely room for more thought on this issue.

While a historically unpopular cast of lawmakers drags out this process, many of those who wait are drowning. Americans have no shortage of depressing headlines and stomach-dropping graphs that provide them with little comfort but the knowledge that nearly everyone else is in the same boat.

Every generation owes money on student loans. American seniors owe an estimated $43bn of the estimated $1tn total owed by US borrowers. But here's what's different for my generation: the average household makes less than it used to, and the cost of higher education is rising. So, how could a clear solution still seem so nebulous?

To both borrowers and Washington, the message is the same: take action.

Borrowers: ask hard questions of your lenders, even if it's for help, and even if you'd rather ignore the process. Consider Warren's proposal to dramatically reduce the student borrower interest rate. Consider the Harkin-Reed bill. Hold your lawmakers as well as yourselves accountable by paying close attention to what happens in the near future. And lawmakers: come back from recess and do something. Anything. Because this situation will only worsen, and America can't afford for any generation of workers to be highly educated, but stunted before they start their careers and "grown-up" lives.

‧ Learn more: Warren's bill, the Reed-Harkin bill and resources from the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. You can read more about the Guardian student debt project here

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Advice for parents on student finance

It's a good idea to apply for a student loan at the same time as applying for university. Photograph: Alamy

Most young people leaving home to go to university will be managing their finances for the first time. So what do they need to know – and how can you, as a parent, help them?

The major source of financial support for students is a maintenance loan, which will be paid back in instalments once they have graduated and are earning more than ￡21,000 a year. Students can apply for loans through the DirectGov website and it's a good idea to do this at the same time as making an application for university. If students apply later than 31 May 2014, there is no guarantee the money will be in place by the start of term.

The maximum loans available are highest for those studying in London and not living with their parents (￡7,675). They are lower for those studying outside of London (￡5,500) and lowest for those living with parents (￡4,375). (These are 2013 figures – the figures for 2014 have not yet been?published.)

Not everyone will receive the maximum loan. In England and Wales, only 65% of the maximum is guaranteed, and what a student receives after?that is dependent on household income. If household income is more than ￡62,125, students will only receive the guaranteed loan and?parents will be expected to top up that. If your child wants to apply for more than the guaranteed loan, you must provide evidence of household income.

Students from poorer households (those with an income of less than about ￡40,000) can also apply for a maintenance grant. The maximum grant is ￡3,354, awarded if the household income?is ￡25,000 or less. Unlike loans, grants do?not have to be paid back. Students who receive?a grant will have the amount of their loan slightly reduced.

For most students, budgets will be tight. There are other sources of funding available, however. A bursary from the National Scholarship Programme may be available to students from households with an income of less than ￡25,000 a year. The bursary is worth ￡3,000 for the first year, though no more than ￡1,000 will be paid in cash – the rest will be paid in the form of a tuition-fee discount or payment in kind (such as a bus pass or book allowance). The NSP is set to change in 2015-16.

Some universities also offer bursaries or academic scholarships for students on certain courses. Students apply directly through the university and details will be available on the university website.

Disabled Student Allowances are available to students with particular disabilities or mental health conditions – the amount varies depending on the student's needs.

Surviving on a low income is a challenge. David Ellis, editor of Student Money Saver, suggests one area where parents could help is in choosing accommodation – he advises shopping around because the difference in cost can run to thousands of pounds a year. Ellis believes parents need to help their children to plan their spending before they start their course and agree who (the parent or student) will take responsibility for each item: "The most helpful thing a parent?could do is to teach their child some basic budgeting skills and a realistic sense of how much things are worth."

Maighread Hegarty's daughter, Alex, is about to enter her final year at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in north London. Alex receives a student loan with London weighting and an annual student grant of about ￡600.
Hegarty and her ex-husband both pay a monthly sum into Alex's bank account to cover?her rent, which is ￡415 a month. Fortunately, the house Alex rents with other students is within walking distance of the college, so there are no additional transport costs. Money has to be found, however, for dance shoes and clothes, as well as "military quantities of black tights".

The most testing time, says Hegarty, is during the holidays, when there is no loan coming in, but accommodation costs still have to be covered: "In her first year, the contract on her first house was finishing in August, with the next one also starting in August, so for July we were paying rent on one and a deposit on the other, which was ￡800."

These websites offer alternative sources of funding or tips to make the money last …

Apply for loans and grants (England)

Student Finance England

Student Finance Wales

Student Finance Northern Ireland

Student Loans Company

Scholarships and bursaries

Disabled Students' Allowances

Student Money Saver

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Student ball at Oxford University ends in 'catastrophe'

A straw boater on a punt in Oxford, where students have had an end-of-term ball to forget. Photograph: Jeremy Trew, Trewimage/Alamy

It was supposed to be a night of "decadence, debauchery, and indulgence", but instead guests of an Oxford University end-of-term ball endured a "catastrophe" with some left with burns, in tears and without food and drink.

Guests at Last Ball at Somerville College, Oxford, paid up to ￡150 for tickets but found that entertainers that were advertised did not turn up and almost all the alcohol had run out before 1am, five hours before the end.

May balls are a tradition at Oxford, Cambridge and other universities. They are normally extravagant and usually well managed by student committees.

The organisers of the ball – planned jointly by Somerville College and Jesus College – had great ambitions; they had planned to exhibit a live shark until they were inundated with complaints. In the event, the ball descended into farce with guests questioning what the organisers had done with the money paid by 1,000 guests.

The Cambridge Tab reported "Food ran out early on in the evening, with only one food stand to cater for 1,000 people. Vegetarians went hungry, with pita bread and cupcakes acting as measly substitutes for the previously mentioned hog roast. What's more, all the alcohol (with the exception of rum) had run out by 1am, and by 4am even that had run out."

Cherwell, the Oxford University magazine reported: "Somerville-Jesus 'Last Ball' goers are 'ripped off'. A 'violent scrum' for food, misleading advertising and 'unprecedented prices' criticised by students and alumni."

Guests using the maze got stuck in bottlenecks and some were injured when it was left unstaffed.

Guests set up a Facebook page to list complaints. Some posted pictures of burnt skin and dresses, caused by crowds waiting around the hog roast for up to an hour. One guest complained that he had to pick up tickets in person despite paying for postage. The same guest had to wait for an hour for a pork roll and suffered bruising in the melee to get food before it ran out.

Another student described how she was prevented from going to bed by overzealous security guards. "I'm a Somerville student and felt ill at about 2am on the night of the ball. Being cold, hungry and having drunk a fair bit I asked to be allowed to go to bed. I spoke to security and a member of the ball committee and when I wasn't allowed to go to bed I burst into tears and explained that I was feeling ill and suffer from depression. I needed sleep but was instead sent to the first aid room," she wrote.

She also noted that other Somerville students were not allowed to go to their rooms to pick up possessions such as asthma inhalers because of "security reasons".

Some of the ball organisers posted a letter apologising for their failures and denying charges of embezzlement. They blamed their failings on their inexperience and the small numbers of committee members. They blamed the injuries sustained at the maze on "some of the maze staff going rogue; a handful of maze actors attempted to leave their positions and sneak into the ball as guests."

‧ This article was amended on 25 May as it mistakenly said that Jesus College was in Cambridge

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Veganism on a student budget

Vegan student cooking doesn't have to mean beans on toast. Photograph: Jupiterimages/Getty Images

Students get a lot of stick for our supposed failure to eat well. Many begin university with little to no knowledge of cooking, left to fend for themselves in the big, bad world of ready meals, eventually succumbing to their second Super Noodle sandwich of the day.

Universities such as Loughborough have set up online TV stations to widen people's culinary skills, with Sam Stern and other celebrity chefs capitalising on this gap in the market. But for me, going to university as a vegetarian – and now vegan – has made my quest to cook and eat well more palatable.

Knowing exactly what I can and cannot eat has forced me to really think about my shopping lists. As a vegan, I do not consume any animal products and try my best not to use any either. I have reacquainted myself with stereotypically boring vegetables (I love you, broccoli), and discovered delicious substitutes like polenta and seitan, a high-protein wheat-based alternative for more meaty meats such as buffalo wings and duck.

Sure, I couldn't apply for catered halls or enjoy my flatmates' weekly beef goulash. And it was difficult in freshers' week having to explain why I didn't drink Fosters or Guinness (they're neither vegetarian nor vegan), but my flatmates were generally accepting on the whole. We coexisted for a year with only minor problems. It could have been worse, too: one of my vegetarian friends woke up to find bacon in his shoes.

Studying in Leeds with a year abroad in Berlin has been a vegan jackpot. In Germany, for instance, purity laws prevent beer companies from using animal products in the brewing process. From delicious pizzas and curries, to deals at local markets (who would say no to three avocados for €1?) my meat free diet has been a breeze.

And I've saved money too. With just a little bit of effort, my Berlin flatmates and I have worked out a system where we each contribute €15 per week towards food. This is a massive boost for my budget and, according to a National Union of Students study, it would be for other's as well. Last year in Leeds my omnivorous friends would usually spend around ￡10 more than me each week when they bought meat.

Nevertheless not everyone is this lucky. Students in less metropolitan areas may struggle to find an organic food store, let alone something like an exclusively vegan pizzeria. But make no mistake: vegans can live healthily shopping only at supermarkets. A number of supermarkets now have vegan product lists and most label their food accordingly. With lactose free and meat free products on the rise, I can make Thai curries, pasta bakes, greasy burgers and nutty risottos. Even cheesecakes are doable.

One thing I really enjoy making is an inexpensive creamy 'chicken' korma sauce. I use Alpro soya cream, diced mushrooms and a block of chopped tempeh, which is a fermented soybean product that has a distinctly nutty taste. It sounds quite disgusting but I assure you, it's good.

For a handful of my friends, though, the pressure of returning home after term ends becomes the real challenge. Many don't know how to tell their families about their new diet, and that they'd prefer a Linda McCartney pie for their Sunday dinner. Friends who come from other cultural backgrounds also struggle; some feel that they're letting their families down by turning vegetarian.

It's a difficult situation to be in, particularly if you have a family of dedicated meat enthusiasts. Being endlessly quizzed about your eating habits is not exactly how you imagine spending your relaxation time at home either. Making sure your friends and family don't think it's 'just a phase' is perhaps one of the biggest obstacles you can face.

When it comes to justifying my diet, I've found that no amount of health statistics (such as this extensive NHS study) or moral reasoning will win people over. My grandparents don't understand my diet and I'm not sure they ever will. But that's okay. You can get at their hearts through their stomachs: make your family a meal and show them how good vegan student cooking can be.

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Striving to save an unreachable student: giving up on Angel

The unreachable student: Anna Bailey has reached the fourth stage of teaching a particular student, where being isolated is preferable to being saved. Photograph: Alamy

One of my new colleagues recently expressed surprise that the rest of us were having so much trouble with Angel. "Oh, he always behaves so well for me" he said, smugly. "I didn't even realise he was supposed to be difficult."

Those of us who have taught Angel for the last two years rolled our eyes and exchanged contemptuous glances. Well done, rookie: you got fooled. In terms of Angel and his behaviour, this is simply stage one, and we've all been there: thinking he was no trouble to us, or even that we would be the teacher to "save him", to show him how great he is, to lead him away from the trajectory that so many poor brown and black kids across America follow, the one that starts with missing school and leads eventually to being jailed for something no white kid would ever go to prison for.

You have entered stage two when Angel responds well to your praise of his great behaviour in class and you let him know how smart he is. The unspoken bit of this is: "Thank you, Angel, because by behaving well for me you are showing all my numbnuts colleagues that I am a better teacher, human being even, than them."

Stage three is tough: as soon as there seems to be a connection, a relationship, some emotional investment on your part, Angel will decide the time has come to punish you. You will be standing in for every person who has ever got close to him and hurt him: the mother who abandoned him when he was small, but not before beating the crap out of him every day, the "uncle" who abused him, the kids who can't stand him because his behaviour is so disturbed, the teachers who gave up and passed him along.

But you will also be standing in for you, for daring to have some expectation that he might succeed at something. To Angel, this is nonsense, for in his own estimation, he is utterly unlovable, a total failure, something which he will work hard at proving by coming to class late, cutting class, cursing, shouting, wandering around your room, yelling, "Your sister can lick my balls," at the one guy in the class who will punch him in the face for even mentioning his sister's name, bother other students, bother you, turn one pair of scissors into two knives, throw paper, throw furniture. He still holds the record in my class for the most detentions in one lesson (four, in two minutes, every one a doozy).

Stage four is the exhausting realisation that you can't save, or even do much to help Angel. When a child is subjected to serious and repeated abuse they hide away everything that makes them vulnerable and become a monster created by the adults who should have nurtured them. So, as if being hurt and betrayed weren't enough, they also become a person who nobody can deal with or really stand to be around. They become even more isolated.

Angel's monstrosity is the only thing still available for him to draw on. Any other parts of him; humour, kindness, compassion were long since buried during the struggle to keep going. He's out of bed and dressed – what more do you want?

A week ago I had my last lesson with Angel. He's a ferociously talented artist, a fact I've pointed out to him several times over the last two years, which he's responded to with indifference. When asked to choose his subjects for next year, I expected him to put art at the top of his list and was dreading the prospect of another two years of disruption while conceding in my own mind that it might be the only thing that would keep him in school and might even "save him".

So I was surprised to see that he had put it absolutely last, and was even rather hurt, something he no doubt intended. Consequently, I knew that the final lesson of tenth grade would be my last encounter as an art teacher with probably the most naturally talented child in the school.

At the end of the lesson, after the usual disruption, obscenities and low-level interference with other kids, he asked me to sign his behaviour sheet. I wrote: "Shouted 'suck my dick' at Deon then threw a pencil at his head." Listening to him arguing with me that he did no such thing and that the remark was a quotation/taken out of context/misheard, I was overcome with weariness. "Angel," I said sadly "this is our last lesson together, and honestly, I am done". The fight went out of him, he folded up his sheet, walked to the door and said "OK, miss, have a nice life."

I saw him a few days later from an upstairs window. He was standing, watching, as a younger boy, Charlie, was being punched and kicked on the ground by Deon. I saw this while invigilating an exam, so it was impossible even to bang on the window and yell at them to stop. The noiseless background gave it a strange, dreamlike quality, especially as Charlie put up no fight at all and simply curled up on the tarmac and waited for the beating to end. When it did, Angel approached the boy with his hand outstretched and helped him up as if there should be no hard feelings, like he was saying: "See? It's really not so bad having the crap kicked out of you, is it?" Then all three boys walked off together.

"OK, miss, have a nice life." I do have a nice life: I have a great job, friends and a family I love, who love me back. I've never been punched, kicked or bitten by anyone, much less by someone who was supposed to care about me. I've never been sexually abused, locked in a cupboard, put out on the street in the dark, in the rain, gone without food, had a cigarette put out on my arm. Thanks, Angel, for hoping that none of that happens to me. I wish none of it had happened to you.

Anna Bailey is a British art teacher who works at a high school in the Bronx, New York. This is the sixth of a series: Brit in the Bronx. She writes under a pseudonym.

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Webchat: What are the Student Media Awards judges looking for?

What makes a Student Media Award winner? Ask the judges. Photograph: Felix Clay for the Guardian

For the past 34 years, the Guardian Student Media Awards have recognised outstanding talent in student journalism. Previous winners include Andrew Rawnsley, Emily Barr, Rankin and Jonathan Freedland. This year's awards also include a new category: data interactive journalist of the year.

Ahead of the deadline for submitting entries, we've lined up some of this year's judges for an online discussion about what makes a winning entry. Panelists will take questions about what they'll be looking for in successful candidates and what makes a winner.

The deadline for entering the awards is the end of week. To enter, submit 3 examples of work by Friday 28 June.

You can join in the discussion by posting in the comment thread below and joining us between 1-3pm on Tuesday 25 June.

Luke Lewis is UK editor of BuzzFeed, a media company for the social age. Prior to joining BuzzFeed, Luke edited NME.com. Luke is a judge in the student website of the year category.

Josh Halliday is a reporter at the Guardian, primarily covering media and technology. He has been involved in the paper's coverage of phone hacking, the Leveson inquiry, and the fallout from the Jimmy Savile scandal. Josh is a judge in the student website of the year category.

Steve Dinneen is editor of City A.M. Bespoke magazine and lifestyle editor of City A.M. newspaper, where he conducts celebrity interviews, reviews restaurants and writes about culture. He is a two-time former Guardian Student Media Award winner from his time at Glasgow University (feature writer, 2005 and critic, 2004). Steve is a judge in the student feature writer of the year category.

Nick Petrie is social media and campaigns editor for the Times and Sunday Times, working with journalists to increase the reach and impact of stories. He also helped found Wannabe Hacks. Nick is a judge in the student data interactive journalist of the year category.

Tobias Sturt is the design and user experience manager for Guardian News and Media. Tobias is a judge in the student data interactive journalist of the year category.

Adam Frost is data visualisation manager at the Guardian Digital Agency. As well as work for the Guardian itself, he has worked on data visualisation projects for clients as diverse as Vodafone, SAB Miller, Ofsted, Kantar, Millward Brown and Walmart. Adam is a judge in the student data interactive journalist of the year category.

Joseph Stashko is a freelance journalist for the AP and the ITV News. He also cofound Liveblog Pro, a liveblogging platform. Joseph won student digital journalist of the year in 2011.

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Tighter rules for student visas could cost UK £2.4bn in a decade – study

A woman demonstrates against the British government's 2012 decision to strip the London Metropolitan University of its right to sponsor visas for overseas students. Photograph: Carl Court/AFP/Getty Images

The government's hardening of international student visa rules could cause long-term damage to Britain's universities and cost ￡2.4bn over the next decade, a study claims.

Research by Universities UK, which lobbies on behalf of British higher education, warns that the visa restrictions may mean many more overseas students choose to study in the US and Canada rather than the UK, taking ￡350m a year in lost revenue with them.

"Such a change would not be easily reversed and, as seen in other higher education systems, the effects can endure across several academic years," the group says in its annual report, published on Wednesday.

The research cites the recent experience of Australia tightening its student visa rules, with the value of Australia's higher education earnings falling 5% between 2010 and 2011.

"This could put the UK's strong position within the global education market at risk and lead to a reduction in exports to the value of ￡2.4bn across the entire [UK] education sector between 2012-13 and 2024-25," the report concludes.

The government introduced a series of curbs on student visa applications, which started from 2011 and were aimed at making visas harder to obtain for foreign students on multiyear courses.

The additional checks brought in included harder English language requirements and the imposition of "credibility check" interviews from 2013. About 100,000 interviews are expected to be carried out this year.

Last year, the Home Office reported that student applications for visas to study at institutions outside of higher education – such as further education colleges – had fallen considerably. That suggests the total loss to the UK economy in foregone fees and lost spending could be even worse than predicted.

Immigration minister Mark Harper disputed the report's conclusions, pointing out that the latest figures show the number of international students applying for visas to attend UK universities has increased.

"Last week's Ucas statistics show applications from international students are up 5.5% compared to this time last year, and latest figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency show the total number of non-EU students at our universities continues to rise," Harper said.

"However, Universities UK continue to criticise the government policies it initially supported. The UK remains open for business to the brightest and best international students: there is no limit on the number of international students who can come here and graduates can stay and work in the UK if they get a graduate level job."

The Universities UK report, The Funding Environment for Universities, surveyed individual universities and found that, while the total number of overseas students from outside the EU enrolled rose by 1.5% in 2013, first-year numbers had fallen.

The biggest falls in overseas recruitment involved students from India, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia.

Saudi student enrolment numbers fell by 31% in 2011-12. Yet at the same time Saudi enrolment at US universities grew by 50% annually.

The report also surveyed universities to gauge the impact of higher fees for UK?students.

It found that the number of young applicants to full-time undergraduate courses fell by 5.7%, with mature applicants experiencing a larger fall of 9%.

"This is bad news for fair access – you're more likely to be studying part-time or be a mature student of over 21 if you're from a disadvantaged background," said Les Ebdon, the director of Fair Access to Higher Education.

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Federal Student Loan debt of Noncompleters

Federal ready student the debt burden of Noncompleters, statistics in focus, emphasis on the median federal student debt acquired by students who do not complete a post-secondary credentials within 6 years to register. It is based on data from the two most recent longitudinal studies to count students in post-secondary level carried out by the National Center for Education Statistics: students enrolled in 1995-96 (from 2001) and those who first registered in 2003-2004 (in 2009).

Highlights include:

In 2009, the percentage of noncompleters after 6 years various 19 percent of students in private 4 years and 46% not-for-profit institutions in public colleges of 2 years or for-profit institutions. Only for students in schools for profit (from 35 to 46%), an increase was observed in the abandonment between 2001 and 2009.

In 2009, from loan federal student loan programs ranged from 25 percent students in public colleges from 2 years to 86% in for-profit institutions; comparable rates for students from 4 years 4 years private nonprofit and public institutions were 54% and 66%, respectively. Note: these rates are for noncompleters.

In 2009, the total amount borrowed by earned credit was higher in the noncompleters at establishments in profit ($350 per credit, compared to $80 for $190 per credit in the other three sectors).

In 2009, the cumulative federal student median debt for all noncompleters amounted to 35 percent of their annual income; the debt burden was highest for students from 4 years of private non-profit institutions (median debt represents 51 per cent of the annual income borrowers). The debt burden between noncompleters who started in for-profit institutions, increased by 20% to 43% for annual income between 2001 and 2009.

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