Crazy for you: What just happened, and where next, for the UK’s switchback policy on international students?

CONTEXT

• The UK’s attractiveness to international students brings varied benefits to the UK, but attracting large numbers of international students requires acknowledging and seeking to address potential trade-offs.
• While the financial reliance of the UK higher education sector on international students cannot be ignored, neither can it simply provide a trump card to shut down any debate around these trade-offs, which have also arisen in Canada and Australia.
• The graduate visa route sits at the core of the policy debate as it blurs the line between whether international students are being sold education or immigration.
• The Migration Advisory Committee review’s recommendation to maintain the graduate visa route might seem inexplicable given its previous stance on the graduate route, but five points help shine light on its rationale:
  • The specific questions raised in the Home Secretary’s commissioning letter to the MAC.
  • The evidence the MAC found in its review on the economic and fiscal contribution of those on the graduate route.
  • Recent policy changes impacting this area, such as restrictions on dependants for master’s students and the rise in the Skilled Worker visa minimum salary threshold.
  • The timing of the review raising concerns that the MAC was being rushed into making a decision.
  • The MAC’s discomfort at being asked to make a recommendation with consequences far beyond its specific remit.

SIX KEY TAKEAWAYS

• The review of the graduate route was merited in light of the number of concerns around the route, and shows the worth of the Migration Advisory Committee in producing new evidence.
• The higher education sector’s strategy around international students is high reward, but high risk, with the potential to dismiss and misrepresent others’ concerns rather than allaying them.
• Public concerns around international students, which have grown recently, should not be ignored and can be addressed.
• There are clear indicators that the UK has suffered similar pressures to Canada and Australia around accommodation due to international student numbers.
• Evidence-based policy making requires collection of evidence, which the Home Office must take more responsibility for.
• The lack of data on what dependants who accompany those coming to the UK do for work means that their economic or fiscal contribution is ignored.

This report is launched alongside a complementary report, Too much of a good thing?, that presents policy recommendations for reducing the Higher Education sector’s overreliance on funding from international students