{"id":178498,"date":"2025-06-12T13:33:15","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T13:33:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/178498\/"},"modified":"2025-06-12T13:33:15","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T13:33:15","slug":"sector-will-pay-the-price-for-rapid-expansion-at-mid-ranking-universities","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/178498\/","title":{"rendered":"Sector will &#8220;pay the price&#8221; for rapid expansion at mid-ranking universities"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Additional reporting by Nicholas Cuthbert<\/strong><\/p>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li>Immigration white paper brings compliance conversations to the fore as Tony Blair\u2019s Home Secretary questions rapid rise in international students at mid-ranking institutions.<\/li>\n<li>Sector hits back at comments, pointing out that consequences of compliance not worth it for institutions.<\/li>\n<li>Concerns also raised about asylum claims, as reports suggest some students are using route to extend stay in UK.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Jack Straw, who served as Home Secretary between 1997 and 2001, pointed to parts of the recently released<a href=\"https:\/\/www.gov.uk\/government\/publications\/restoring-control-over-the-immigration-system-white-paper\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\"> immigration white paper<\/a> that showed universities ranked between 600 an 1,200 by the Times Higher Education had \u201cexpanded dramatically\u201d in terms of their international intake.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere has to be a question there about the fact that some universities in that category have been chasing students and not paying attention to rigorous controls,\u201d he told delegates at Duolingo English Test\u2019s inaugural DETCon London yesterday. \u201cAnd if you do that, the rest of the sector will pay the price.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYou may be complaining about that, but that\u2019s just where it is,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p>He highlighted the raft of stricter controls on international students highlighted in the white paper \u2013 which includes more stringent English language requirements and <a href=\"https:\/\/thepienews.com\/visa-refusals-study-in-uk\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">higher thresholds <\/a>for the Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) \u2013 saying that he was \u201cin no doubt\u201d these would come into force in time.<\/p>\n<p>While the effect of these tighter regulations could \u201csqueeze\u2026 some universities\u201d, some of their business models up until this point had not been sustainable, he said. Straw went so far as to tell The PIE News that it was inevitable some universities would go bust.<\/p>\n<p>Straw\u2019s comments drew ire from delegates at the conference \u2013 some of whom dismissed the claims as \u201crubbish\u201d, while others were at pains to point out the high compliance rate in the sector.<\/p>\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>You may be complaining about that, but that\u2019s just where it is<br \/><strong>Jack Straw, former Home Secretary<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Speaking in a panel discussion later on at the event, deputy vice-chancellor at the University of Portsmouth, Chris Chang, said the notion that only certain institutons should be able to recruit international students was \u201cnonsense\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHalf of the international staff [at this conference] would not be here today. I wouldn\u2019t be here today because I\u2019m went to study at a post-92 institution,\u201d he said. \u201cAt the end of the day, I think that\u2019s rubbish. I will be brave enough to say that.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>He stressed that his university doesn\u2019t \u201ctake sides\u201d, instead offering choice and options for international students. And, he added, it is in institutions\u2019 best interests to pay heed to immigration controls. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cWe need to protect our sponsorship license \u2013 and that\u2019s right, we need to take immigration policy seriously, that\u2019s our duty. But we still offer choice and different people have different drivers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>Anne Marie Graham, UKCISA chief executive, defended the UK\u2019s higher education sector as being \u201cextremely compliant\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThat\u2019s not to say it is 100% compliant \u2013 there will be issue that arise \u2013 but what we don\u2019t hear in that public narrative is how the UKVI and institutions work collaboratively to identify trends and work to eradicate problems,\u201d she told The PIE. <\/p>\n<p>She continued: \u201cIt\u2019s in no sponsors\u2019 interest to be noncompliant, they would lose their licence if they were to do so.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, HEPI director Nick Hillman took aim at the Home Office\u2019s attitude towards international education in the UK \u2013 shown in its emphasis upon compliance at universities in the <a href=\"https:\/\/thepienews.com\/breaking-uk-graduate-route-reduced-to-18-months-under-immigration-white-paper\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">immigration white paper<\/a>. Speaking to The PIE, he paid particular mind to the squeezed BCA thresholds.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI think that it was quite a clever move of the government to put that crack down on compliance in the white paper because it is the sort of thing [mainstream] journalists overlook, but it is critically important and a good number of universities are very close to those new, reduced thresholds and they are going to have to look very carefully at their numbers,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n<p>And he said the sector always faced an \u201cexistential crisis\u201d in the rare cases when institutions were banned from recruiting international students. <\/p>\n<p>\u201cThere are a lot of different factors to do with compliance, some of which are in the control of the university, and some are to do with geopolitical factors. You suddenly find you\u2019ve got far more applicants from one part of the world that you have traditionally recruited from,\u201d he said. \u201cThese numbers can go up and down by more than people realise year to year and I think the Home Office are trying to pull a fast one in making it look much simpler than it feels to people on the ground.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Speaking at DETCon London, Straw also took a hard line on reports of international students applying for asylum \u2013 which also formed a sizeable part of the immigration white paper as the government took swipes at those it claims are doing so disingenuously as a way to extend their time in the UK.<\/p>\n<p>The white paper drew attention to an increasing number of asylum clams for students coming to the end of their course \u201ceven though nothing substantive has changed in their home country while they have been in the UK\u201d. It pointed to figures showing that around 30% of asylum claims in the UK come from visa holfers, with 47% of this number coming from students.<\/p>\n<p>While Straw pointed out that some of these claims would be genuine, he hit out at the practice as a whole, calling it \u201ca racket\u2026 we should have no truck with\u201d.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cEverybody knows it\u2019s a racket. And there are a lot of people, particularly immigration advisors and lawyers, who are making money out of this racket,\u201d he stressed. \u201cWe should deal with it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Additional reporting by Nicholas Cuthbert Immigration white paper brings compliance conversations to the fore as Tony Blair\u2019s Home&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178499,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,4],"tags":[748,19633,73585,393,4884,6949,1144,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-178498","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-uk","8":"category-united-kingdom","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-compliance","11":"tag-duolingo-english-test","12":"tag-england","13":"tag-great-britain","14":"tag-international-students","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-scotland","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114670652877449771","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178498","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178498"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178498\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178499"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178498"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178498"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178498"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}