Fifteen minutes on the campus of one of our universities last week highlighted very clearly again their international character and left me wondering if we fully appreciate the real resource that this creates - and more importantly, if we are doing enough to make best use of it.
Of course the great transhumance of British students is just about to begin, so overseas students - predominantly from east Asia it seemed - who are no doubt either putting finishing touches to post graduate dissertations or are adding final polish to their English-language skills before embarking on a course in a few weeks - were very visible.
Leave aside the immediate economic benefit from their presence - the university fees, rent and spending as they feed and amuse themselves here.
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In a world where it's a given that the balance of power and influence is in dramatic flux there's maybe a much longer lasting pay-off in terms of relationships and connections to be formed with these young people.
The issue of overseas students here has of course become embroiled in the wider and politically treacherous field of immigration. Certainly there were some dodgy institutions operating here and people were recruited and entered the 海角视频 as students improperly.
However the response to that - exacerbated by the bigger immigration issue - has been not so much just to eject the baby with the bathwater but to toss out the bath itself and maybe several metres of the associated plumbing.
In the United States a rather different is developing with regard to overseas students and bringing about consideration changing immigration policy to actually encourage those students to stay on after their studies.
This focuses on the so-called STEM subjects ( science, technology, engineering and maths) and the rationale is simply to argue that overseas students, having benefited from the quality and character of US teaching and research institutions, should be encouraged to stay and put something further back into the nation that nurtured them.
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Legislation to enact this idea was presented to both parts of Congress last year but wasn't enacted. Currently there is a lobby, with people like Mark Zukerberg of Facebook, prominent in trying to take the idea forward.
It does contract with the approach here where these days overseas student are pretty much directed straight from the examination hall to the departure lounge without much opportunity to draw breath - and also with the situation only a few years ago when students had the opportunity to apply for a visa allowing them to say on and gain experience for a couple of years after completing their formal studies.
But rather than simply bleating about the possible short-sightedness of current policy there are things that can be done begin to build lasting relationships that may pay real dividends in the long term.
The England China Business Forum is a loose association of like minded individuals in Birmingham drawn together by a desire to do business with China and hoping to share experience and insight among smaller companies that are already doing just that.
It has also taken in the related task of exploring with these international students - in particular from China - ways in which they might connect better with business here to mutual advantage.
ECBF has been engaging with a small group of Chinese post-graduates studying at the Birmingham Business School through the summer months trying to work out a way in which that connection might develop.
Initial ideas related to facilitating attendance of the young people at social/ networking events here; discussing this with the students themselves it was clear that there was a huge appetite among them for spending some time within British businesses just to see how they were organised, how people worked together, how things happened.
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With the very welcome support of Lloyds and PwC, EBCF were able to arrange a couple of experiences.
The feedback the students provided from these events was illuminating. The openness and the relative informality of the working environment here was huge eye opener for them( rest assured that no client confidentialities were breached !) and provided a very real insight into how business actually works here which complemented their classroom studies.
They were all eager to deepen their experience and very clear that their colleagues here would really welcome similar opportunities in their time here.
ECBF would really like to extend this experiment into a more permanent feature of our City's engagement with the international student community and is looking for the further and higher education sectors, business and the City Council to work with together to deliver a full scale programme.
With the City Council, in particular about to launch it own 'Distinctly Birmingham' campaign as its commitment to an international city what could be more distinctively Birmingham than an initiative like this one ?