Foreign student visa applications plummet for UK universities

28 comments

1. Good. I knew half a dozen international students and as an ethnic insider, I could name a dozen laws and rules they broke. The majority do not come here for education, it’s unfortunate for the ones who do.

2. Higher Education doesn’t appear to be a priority for Labour but hopefully they’ll reverse the visa rule changes and do something about funding. Starmer obviously backtracked on abolishing fees so it’ll be interesting to see if he’s brave enough to raise them. Maybe it’ll require a University to go bust to force them into action.

3. >The latest data shows a 40 per cent drop in sponsored study visa applications, suggesting that visa restrictions implemented by the previous government continue to impede recruitment efforts.

   >Last month, the Home Office received just 28,200 applications, a significant decrease from the 38,900 recorded in June 2023.

   And this is why the sector is going into massive crisis. Foreign student fees are the mainstay of most universities at the moment due to the structures around funding for domestic students and for research grants. Universities are forced to run these at a loss. In 2019 the government put out a white paper in which they outlined the plan to focus on foreign students to bring money into the HE sector, with a stated aim of 600,000 students a year. Covid put a *huge* dent in university finances, and then as these foreign students started coming government decided to about-face and put heavier restrictions in place.

   Universities employ hundreds of thousands of people. The sector is worth well over £100bn, remains one of the most highly regarded globally, and has now become one of the largest employers in many towns and smaller cities up and down the country. Without the money students and university workers bring in, local economies up and down the country will fall into pretty immediate crisis.

   I don’t understand why we’re so blasé about this. There absolutely is huge need for reform, academics have been striking for this for the last 5+ years already, but the *attitude* in this country where so many people seem to almost be actively cheering on the sector’s collapse is genuinely really weird.

4. This would suggest a lot of people come to the UK on a student visa so that they can bring their family with them to the UK, with presumably the long term aim of getting a job, visa sponsorship and setting down following graduation. 

   Interesting that near half of overseas students would then likely be married adults rather than the stereotypical student in their late teens/early 20s. 

5. Good. Housing is already difficult. Im in a small non university town and people are coming to live in bedsits . Sort the infrastructure in university towns before calling them 

6. Canada has a huge issue with people coming to ‘study’ when really they’re just a diploma mill.

7. Good, don’t need to bring your mam or brother to go to University.

8. My MiL works in foreign student admissions. Applications have nose dived due to the changes. So to keep up the income stream her uni is now accepting 3 A-level equivalents of any subject and grade, when UK students require 4 A-Cs in a relevant study.

   Absolute shambles.

9. Honestly, this is a good thing. I used to be a lecturer and many international students were only there to bring their family in to the UK and job hunt. They ruin the experience for everyone else.

   For the amount that both domestic and international students are paying, they deserve a good experience that shouldn’t be ruined by those that are there only to get their family in to the UK.

10. Great news. Hopefully, they stop building those luxury student accommodation towers now.

    It’s time to start building real houses for our citizens again.

11. “This downturn in international student numbers could have severe financial implications for UK higher education institutions, many of which rely heavily on the income generated by overseas students.”

    To be fair, these institutions have only known and been saying this for years and people blindly followed Reform anyway because immigrants = bad.

    It’s Brexit all over again, stupid people ignoring facts.

12. So 40% of foreign students care more about getting their relatives into the UK then they do about studying…

13. Maybe word got around other countries about the bullshit service levels and tuition quality they can expect in exchange for the extortionate fees in the UK.

14. They’re literally 1.5-2% of GDP…

    A 40% drop in numbers leaves up unbelievably poorer.

15. Whelp, looks like I best be ready to transition out of academia, they were already planning to fire 10% of us but if our drop in next year’s internationals falls by the same amount…

16. Good. The amount of overseas students we were receiving was way too high.

17. Great news. They might actually build some houses/flats near me, rather than yet another student block.

18. Unis went on a building and spending spree during the good years. They now have to downsize during the lean years.

    Universities have long been businesses. Now they need to act like one during tough times too

19. Ah there is nuance here. I meet with the CEO of a major student property company in the UK and asked him this exact question. What is happening is that within the statistics they are actually including **dependents** of those coming over. And the ratio of students to dependents was 7:1! That’s right, each student was bringing **7 other dependents!**. Utterly ridiculous. Furthermore, the degrees and universities are often really low tier as it’s just a backdoor into the country.

    In reality, they say the number of students doing **quality** degrees at **quality** universities is actually rising.

    This article is absolute nonsense.

20. Surely. If your only reason for coming to study in the UK was to use it as a back door to bring over your whole family then this change is fair?

    Then if said family start using the resources of the country. Social housing NHS schooling etc that far outweighs the 30K they will pay the uni?

    Or am I missing something

21. 10 june 2016

    Farage continued: “I’ve noticed a lot of students talk about is the Erasmus [exchange] programme.

    “Do you know something? We can be a part of Erasmus and do student exchanges and all the normal things good neighbours would want to do in the normal world without being members of political union.

    “There are countries outside the European Union who are in Erasmus.”

    22 june 2016
    Mr Farage also used his last major speech before voters head to the polls to cast their vote in the EU referendum to urge British people to vote with the “heart” and “soul”. He added that voters could make Friday the UK’s “Independence Day”.

    “Let’s stop pretending what this European project is,” the Ukip leader said in his speech. “They have an anthem, they are building an army, they’ve already got their own police force and of course they’ve got a flag.

    “At the end of the day tomorrow when people vote they must make a decision: which flag is theirs? I want, I want us to live under British passports and under the British flag.”

    “Vote with your heart, vote with your soul, vote with pride in this country and its people and together we can make tomorrow our Independence Day – a big day in our national history.

22. Well, great! UK doesn’t like immigrants and their monies, why sud it matter now? They think All nominal jobs and meager wages belong ti immigrants, while all govt houses, high paying jobs must go to whitish white ppls. Good, these students don’t need to fund for whitish white professors and their hungry children

23. A lot of my fellow classmates (Luxembourg) went on to study in the UK back when we finished high school, before Brexit.

    Nowadays I never hear of any family with kids going there. So I wonder if that number isn’t mostly due to EU-students no longer coming, rather than the UK government keeping Asian/African immigration out.

24. Good thing, majority aren’t looking for an education but instead a route to immigrate. Canada is a good example of just how out of control it can get, and it very much was happening here too.

25. The quality of international students when I was at a Russell group uni was abysmal. And they made up 80% of my class. It was no coincidence that not once did I ever get to choose my group in group work projects. Nor was it a coincidence that every group had one local student and four foreign students. I’m not sure I ever worked with another English student in any of my group work projects.

    Absolute scam. Ruined my uni academic experience. Everything had to be dumbed down to cater for less able foreign students with an often poor grasp of English.

26. Suspect 99.99% of people worried about immigration aren’t worried about students…its the deliveroo economy, the small boats, the criminals and those that should be deported that people worry about imo.

    This fixation on numbers is stupid. It’s horrible to say but it’s quality and students paying fees that keep British fees lower and many stay and help our economy. Even those that don’t stay have experienced life in the UK which helps sell our soft power.

27. It’s quite bizarre how this country has so fully embraced neoliberalism, yet still adamantly refuses to let big businesses fail, ever.

28. I have complete faith in the competence of any UK government. Just think how well they have done in the past; Iraq war twice, brexit, Boris Johnson, controlling our borders, maintaining, supporting & prolonging the war in Ukraine.

    The government is totally capable & look after all their citizens very well.

    Leading the world in how to fuck it up.