The economic impact of the expansion of post study work rights and the Graduate route

Economic impact

Policies to extend post study work rights first signalled in the International Education Strategy (published March 2019), and the launch of the Graduate Route, have driven substantial growth in international non-EU enrolments from 2019/20 to the present time.

UUKi modelling suggests that this has directly contributed to 632,000 additional international first-year enrolments over the 5-year period 2019/20 to 2023/24, equivalent to an additional net economic contribution of £62.6 billion to the UK economy relative to the baseline growth scenario, over the duration of studies.

Caveats:

• EU nationals: Although the IES and the post-study work rights created through the Graduate route will have served to mitigate declines in EU student enrolment, (there have been 1,670 Graduate visas issued to EU nationals up to the year ending September 2023) the turbulent policy context for EU students including the changes in fee and visa status during the reference period means that it is difficult to accurately model this effect and EU nationals have been excluded from the analysis. The analysis therefore underestimates the impact in this respect.
• Measures of inflation: The London Economics analysis provides net impact per student estimates for the 2018/19 and 2021/22 cohorts. Bank of England inflation at 2.0% was used to estimate inflationary impacts for other cohorts. This is significantly below CPI and RPI inflation rates and typical tuition fee increases and represents a more cautious estimate of inflationary increases in net impact.  
• Changes to undergraduate / postgraduate ratios: HESA data is available up to and including the 2021/22 academic year, and these data form the basis for the most recent London Economics impact analysis. Absent more recent enrolment data, we have not sought to model the impact of any changes in the student populations on the net economic impact per student figure for the years 2022/23 and 2023/24. The net impact for these cohorts therefore represents an estimate based on the previous London Economics estimates.