Are international students welcome in the UK?

Last week British Home Secretary Theresa May has announced tougher visa rules. Some of these will affect overseas students, i.e. students coming from outside the European Union. Non-EU students will be forced to leave the country as soon as their degree finishes and they will be banned from working while studying in the UK.

The government has defined this move as a “crackdown on visa fraud”. Immigration minister James Brokenshire said student visas are being abused as a “backdoor to a British work visa”. In announcing the new visa rules, the Home Secretary revealed that non-EU students accounted for 120,000 immigrants last year. Of these, only 51,000 left the UK, leaving a net influx of about 70,000. If the new rules will be approved by the parliament non EU-students will not be able to extend their visas and will have to leave the country before applying for a work visa. In countries such as the US, Canada and Australia international students are allowed to stay for a maximum of 12 months to look for work after finishing their degree. Some of the new measures are design to target “bogus colleges” agencies that help students to use visa rights as a mean to immigration.

The problem is that while the government maintains that international students are welcome to come study in the UK, the message that comes across is the opposite and it risks to be counterproductive from an economic point of view. International students are a major source of income for British universities. In fact, overseas students are charged much higher fees than their European classmates for their education. Clearly, most international students attending British universities are quite wealthy. The very process to obtain a student visa is so complicated and costly (it includes among other things the requirement of having £10,000 resting in students’ bank accounts for 12 months) that only very motivated and relatively well-off students go through it. The Higher Education Funding Council for England, the sector funding body, estimates that English universities made £3.2bn from non-EU student fees in 2013-14, which constituted 12.9% of their £25.6bn of income in that year. Apart from the universities, local businesses also thrive off international students and the money they bring to the country. A study by the Sheffield University has found that international students brought a net contribution of £120m into the local economy and £136m into the wider region of Yorkshire. The study also found that less than 10% of students stay and work in the area after graduating. It is not surprising then that academics have already begun to criticise the new rules, claiming they will discourage international students to come to the UK and will starve Britain of money and talent. It is unclear if the government acknowledges the possibility that such a move could mean fewer non-EU students wishing to attend British universities. It also unclear how the government intends to make up for the economic loss was that possibility to become true. Would it be possible for the government to keep university fees for European students at £9,000 per year (an already very unpopular level)? Or would an increase be necessary?

The new visa rules serve to help the Tories to reach their target to reduce net immigration but it might bring more short-term popularity to them than long-term financial gains to the country. As it happens too often, immigration rules turn people into scapegoats in order to try to unify and please a divided electorate.

@aplazzarin