International student deposits in UK dive after graduate visas tightened

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1. Full Text

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   The number of international students paying deposits to study at UK universities has “plummeted” after Rishi Sunak put restrictions on education visas, according to industry data given to the government’s independent adviser on migration. Enroly, a web platform used by one in three international students for managing university enrolment, said deposits to a representative sample of 24 British universities had declined 57 per cent year-on-year as of May.

   The data, shared directly with the Financial Times, will form part of a Migration Advisory Committee report set to be published on Tuesday into whether the government should continue to let international students stay and work in the UK for two years after graduation. The study into the “Graduate Visa Route” was commissioned in March by home secretary James Cleverly to investigate concerns that graduate visas were being used as a backdoor immigration route rather than “attracting and retaining the best and brightest students”.  Jeffrey Williams, Enroly chief executive, said the company’s analysis showed “international student deposits, a key indicator of future enrolments, have plummeted”. “This steep decline signals a significant drop in the UK’s attractiveness as a study destination. With such a drastic year-on-year reduction, further restrictive policies could exacerbate an already critical situation,” he added.

   The Enroly data for the September 2024 entry period includes postgraduate students who were hit by Sunak’s decision last year to heavily restrict visas that allowed them to bring their family members to the UK. Ministers are expected to make a decision on whether to axe the graduate route as early as this week. Sunak is under pressure from the right of the Conservative party to abolish it ahead of the upcoming general election to show the Tories are serious about cutting legal net migration after it exceeded a record 640,000 in the year to June 2023. Last week Robert Jenrick, former immigration minister who quit Sunak’s government in December, issued a report with the conservative Centre for Policy Studies think-tank calling for the graduate visa route to be abolished. But in recent weeks the prime minister and the chancellor Jeremy Hunt have also been subjected to a barrage of lobbying from the education sector arguing that the graduate visa is vital for the UK’s ability to compete in the global market for talent. University and industry leaders have argued that any move to further crimp education visas will inflict significant damage on a sector that relies on foreign fee income for more than a fifth of its revenues. Overseas student typically pay two or three time the fees paid by domestic students.

   Student migration to the UK reached a record high in 2022, with about 484,000 sponsored study visas issued, a 38 per cent increase from 2021 when the graduate visa route was reintroduced. A previous version was abolished in 2012. In 2021-22 there were 820,310 postgraduates studying in the UK, of which almost half, or 372,500 were from overseas — up from about one-third in 2017-18. A letter last week co-signed by the heads of 17 local chambers of commerce warned that abolition of the graduate visa route and the resultant loss of income from international students would have “a serious impact” upon R&D capacity in the UK. Jane Harrington, vice-chancellor of the University of Greenwich and chair of University Alliance that co-ordinated the letter, said that ending the route would be “an extraordinary economic own goal”. Abolishing the graduate route could also have a significant impact on undergraduate applications, which have recently seen markedly slower annual growth but not yet a decline.

   In January, data from the University Universities and Colleges Admissions Service showed undergraduate international applications were 0.7 per cent higher than the previous year as of January.  FT analysis of the data showed one-third of institutions had seen a decline in overseas applicants, indicating uneven impacts across the sector. A survey last month of 75 universities by the British Universities International Liaison, which represents the international recruitment sector, found almost nine out of 10 reported a year-on-year decrease in postgraduate applications from international students for the September 2024 intake.

   For undergraduate applications, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed reported a reduction, according to the survey. A senior government official said the government’s position on the graduate visa route had not been pre-determined. “We are waiting for the MAC report before we decide which direction to go. You can expect James Cleverly to read the MAC report and take a decision based on that,” the official added.

   Labour, which is leading in the polls ahead of the upcoming general election, declined to set out its position before the MAC report is published. The Home Office said: “We are fully focused on striking the right balance between acting decisively to tackle net migration and attracting the best and brightest students to study at our universities, recognising the significant contribution they make to the UK.”

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2. The cognitive dissonance between acknowledging the distinct (frankly purposeful) lack of housing and distinct increase in the number of people residing in this country has consequences that can’t simply be ignored anymore.

3. Further erosion of uk soft power. It all adds up in the end. I am sure when we are alone on our rock with nobody interested in playing with us anymore the uk will be at its most sovereign.

4. Canada currently has 900,000 international students. Most from India. Most are practically illiterate and go to diploma mills where they don’t go to class because they work 40 hours a week. All an immigration scam and our government knows it. They pay 20k dollars each for a worthless diploma.

5. Crazy to tighten visas on people coming into UK to do professional qualifications and paying thousands into our universities. Those are the people you want coming here, surely?

   Again, going for soft targets to get the numbers down. Like the example of them denying a working Ukrainian couple bringing their own baby into the UK. It’s easier to reduce migration numbers this way than tackling illegal migration from criminal gangs and spurious asylum claims that bring in large numbers of people who contribute little and bring unpleasant cultural baggage with them.