Responding to today's publication of the UK revenue from education related exports and transnational education activity in 2016 report by the Department for Education, Vivienne Stern, Director of Universities UK International, said: "These figures highlight the hugely beneficial economic impact of the UK higher education sector and our international students, including students that come to the UK to study and those studying on UK programmes overseas.
"While the growth shown between 2015 and 2016 highlights that a UK university education is still in high demand, growth in the UK's provision of higher education to international students has stagnated following changes to student migration policy made in 2012. The UK's growth has not kept pace with other major study destinations such as Australia, New Zealand and Canada.
"The government's upcoming International Education Strategy offers a real opportunity to rectify this plateau in growth. We hope that recent proposals to extend the time international students can stay in the UK to look for work after graduating for a period of up to one year for PhD students and six months for others are introduced swiftly by government. However, we also believe it is necessary to go further, with a two-year Global Graduate Talent visa, that would make the UK more attractive to students and would allow a wider range of employers, in all parts of the UK, to benefit from access to talented graduates from around the world."
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Notes
Universities UK (UUK) proposed an improved post-study work system for international graduates in September 2018, which can be read here
In October 2018, UUK published a briefing which calculated the lost export revenue to the sector because of immigration rule changes.
