Here's the thing, many British universities rely on fees paid by foreign students ?" which are several times higher than domestic fees ?" to remain economically viable. In a report by the U.K.'s Times newspaper, the problem of the naira collapsing against the pound was cited by one university as the reason for its need to make cuts to staff and other costs after a "very sudden reduction of the number of students" from Nigeria. You can see why they had become comfortable with large Nigerian student numbers. The report says there had been a "sevenfold increase in enrollments in four years." This saw Nigeria overtake the entire European Union with 33,000 students at British universities.