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No ‘rejections’ of international student applications fuels concern over university’s finances
3 min read6 h
Universities have not received a “boost” in overseas applications after the postgraduate visa row was resolved, an industry expert has said, further fuelling fears that higher education institutions could be facing “major problems” financially.
Vivienne Stern, chief executive of Universities UK, told PoliticsHome that the sector was “expecting to see a small improvement in visa issuance following the conclusion of the discussion with the last government on the graduate route”, but this had not materialised.
There are growing concerns that the university’s finances could come under pressure in the coming months following changes to visa rules for international students.
Stern told Politics that national universities could find themselves in “big trouble very quickly” if their international fee revenues suffer any kind of “collapse”.
Towards the end of the last Conservative government, former Prime Minister Rishi Sunak considered scrapping the graduate visa route altogether in a bid to reduce overall net migration numbers.
The suggestion has sparked a backlash from university leaders. They have warned that the visa, introduced by Conservative ministers in 2021, is an important element of the UK’s attractiveness as a place to study. It allows international students to stay in the country for up to three years after completing their studies.
It is also considered a major contributor to university finances, as international students pay higher fees to study in the UK than their British counterparts.
Speaking to PoliticsHome, Stern said scrapping the postgraduate visa would have a “very, very significant” effect on international student applications.
And while that didn’t happen, with Sunak ultimately dissuaded from taking the decision, the expected “rebound” when the controversial measure was scrapped also didn’t happen.
“We were hoping that we would see a bounce back, that students would be waiting to see if that route was open and then they would apply. It seems that hasn’t happened,” she said.
Stern said, however, that a “late recovery” was still possible in the coming weeks.
The idea of scrapping the visa is believed to have been opposed by several Cabinet ministers at the time, including Jeremy Hunt and Gillian Keegan, who were Chancellor and Education Secretary respectively. Former Conservative Education Secretary Justine Greening also strongly opposed the idea, describing it as “self-destructive” in an interview with PoliticsHome.
In May, the Migration Advisory Committee published a report recommending that the postgraduate pathway remain in place, having found “no evidence of any significant abuse” by students using it.
The Sunak government had already moved to ban most overseas students from bringing family members to the UK, much to the frustration of university leaders who said it would deter overseas students from applying to study in Britain.
Stern said he was not calling on the new Labour government and education secretary Bridget Phillipson to reverse the dependent restrictions, but warned that universities could be in “big trouble very quickly” if their international fee income suffered any kind of “collapse”.
Now she wants ministers to confirm that the postgraduate route will remain and to link tuition fees in England to the rate of inflation.
“In England, part of the solution has to be to halt the slow decline in the amount of funding that universities use for teaching, and they have to do that by creating a link between inflation and tuition fees in England.
“We cannot allow this to be eroded year after year, this cannot continue,” she said.
Figures from the Ministry of the Interior show that from January to June there were 87,300 applications for sponsored study visas between January and June this year, 17% fewer than the same period in 2023. More than 28,000 of these applications were made in June, while June 2023 saw almost 39,000 applications.
Applications tend to peak between July and September, in the weeks immediately preceding the new academic year.
A government spokesperson told PoliticsHome: “It is important that we have a sustainable higher education funding system that delivers opportunities, supports students and maintains the world-leading status of our universities.
“International students enrich our university campuses and we want to attract them to study here, while reducing net migration levels.”
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