Lifting visa restrictions for foreign students 'could save' UK universities

All options must be on the table, says higher education watchdog

Study visa applications are down by almost 40 per cent this year, the Home Office says. PA

Britain's universities watchdog has urged the government to lift visa restrictions on international students in a bid to save struggling institutions.

Office for Students interim chairman Sir David Behan said increasing tuition fees and the easing of visa regulations could help revive embattled universities.

He said “all options” should be on the table to fix the struggling sector and warned the “golden age of higher education” could be over.

The number of international students applying to British universities has fallen.

In January, visa restrictions were introduced to prevent most international students from bringing dependants to the UK and this is believed to have affected application numbers.

Nick Hillman, from the Higher Education Policy Institute think tank, told The National an international drop across the board has hit master's student numbers hardest but it is having a notable effect on all overseas applications.

“There has been a big drop in applications from overseas,” Mr Hillman said.

“It results from the changes to the rules on bringing dependants instituted in January 2024 as well as from a range of other factors, like Nigeria’s economic problems.”

The Migration Advisory Committee estimates the ban on dependants could lead to a fall of 120,000 in annual migration, and Home Office data shows 62,600 (39 per cent) fewer students and dependants applied for study visas in the first six months of 2024 than in the same period last year.

In May, most Russell Group universities reported a decline in international master's applications compared to May 2023, with an overall drop of 10 per cent for September 2024 starts.

“I think the resilience of the sector overall has been tested by a number of different forces … the global pandemic, the impact of leaving the European Union,” Sir David told The Sunday Times.

“There’s been unprecedented political change across our governments over the past few years, in terms of secretaries of state and continuity.

“We’ve had industrial action, the cost-of-living crisis, the increasing cost of pensions and decreasing number of international students, and then, finally, domestic undergraduate fees remaining frozen since 2012 … and what it’s meant is that the fiscal deficit for some organisations is significant.”

Sir David has called on universities to explore mergers or partnership arrangements with other institutions, amid fears some could be facing bankruptcy.

“It’s important that universities revise their medium-term financial strategies … they can’t just carry on,” he said.

Thousands of pupils received their A-level results on Thursday, when Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson said any large increase in tuition fees in the next five years would be “unpalatable”.

“I do recognise the challenge and I hear that message from institutions as well, but I think that’s a really unpalatable thing to be considering,” she told Sky News.

“Not least because I know that lots of students across the country are already facing big challenges around the cost of living, housing costs, lots of students I speak to who are already working lots of jobs, extra hours, in order to pay for their studies.”

University leaders have been calling on the government to raise the annual tuition fee for domestic students in line with inflation to help institutions struggling financially.

The previous government raised the cap on university tuition fees in England to £9,000 ($11,650) a year in 2012 but it has been fixed at £9,250 since 2017.

Ms Phillipson said the government intends to “reform the system overall”.