Responding to today’s announcement by Home Office Minister Damian Green of new student visa rules, Nicola Dandridge, Chief Executive of Universities UK, said: “The message from Government must be that legitimate students are welcome in the UK. International students make an enormous contribution to our universities, and the UK economy. We support the elimination of abuse in the visa system but are concerned that an unintended consequence of the changes to Tier 4 is that legitimate students will be put off, or prevented from studying in the UK.

“In our view, international students at our world renowned universities should not be treated as migrants for the purposes of the Government’s net migration figures, since the majority of them leave the UK the end of their studies.

“We are particularly concerned about limited provision for post-study employment in the new rules. We recognise that unrestricted access to the labour market is not possible in the current economic climate, but the new rules risk having a disproportionate impact on particular sectors, regions and professions, and reducing the global talent pool from which employers can recruit. This could harm the UK’s international competitiveness, and the competitiveness of universities in the international student market.  The UK is already losing market share in what is a growing market and reducing our competitiveness further will amount to a missed opportunity for growth. The option of post-study work is a valuable incentive to prospective students to chose to study in the UK, even if many don’t take it up.

“The Government has made some helpful changes to proposals relating to limits to the maximum length of study. Universities UK believes this will allow a greater number of combinations of study to be undertaken by international students than would have been possible under the original proposals. However, we believe there will still be a small number of legitimate study combinations which will not be possible under the new rules.

“Universities UK has been instrumental in helping the Government develop the Graduate Entrepreneurs route. While this will affect only a small number of international students, this is a welcome initiative.”

Notes

1. For more information on today’s Home Office announcement, visit: http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/media-centre/news/new-student-immigration-rules