Biggest drop in foreign student visas for 20 years in wake of Tory crackdown
Foreign student visas have suffered their biggest fall in more than 20 years after a migration crackdown by the Tories, official figures show.
The number of visas issued to overseas students fell by nearly a fifth (18.7 per cent) from 499,900 in 2023 to 406,500 in the year to September, marking the biggest drop this century.
The decline follows the Conservatives’ decision to bar all foreign students from bringing dependants with them into the UK apart from those doing research-led PhDs.
The number of visas issued for students bringing their dependants fell 85 per cent to just 17,800, which is down from 115,700 last year.
The number of foreign students coming to the UK has increased steadily since 2000 but rose significantly after the Conservative government set a target in 2019 of attracting 600,000 students to higher education each year by 2030.
Universities achieved the target in 2020/21 – eight years early – with foreign students providing a lucrative source of income after fees from domestic undergraduates were capped at £9,250 in 2017.
The only years to see previous drops were during the Covid pandemic when the number of foreign student visas fell by between 13 per cent and 16 per cent, and during the financial crash when numbers fell by 59,000.
Universities are lobbying Labour to increase tuition fees for domestic UK students and to boost direct government funding with the aim of halting the growing deficit, which has been partly fuelled by the drop in international student visas.
Universities UK, which represents more than 140 institutions, said: “Universities lose money teaching UK students – and that deficit has grown year on year.
“We have to halt that. If investment in teaching students had kept up with inflation, funding per student would be in the region of £12,000-£13,000.”
Prof Christopher Day, the vice chancellor of Newcastle University who chairs the Russell Group, said there would be “bigger class sizes, fewer lectures, fewer nice buildings to teach in and less equipment for the practical subjects” unless more money was put into the system.
“The harsh reality is that unless the student and/or the taxpayer pay some more, the sector will shrink or the quality will go down,” he said. “There are no alternatives.”
Overall visa applications, which include workers and students, are down 36 per cent year-on-year, with just 582,000 requests in the first nine months, compared to 913,700 in the previous year.
The Home Office figures suggest immigration is on course to fall by at least 300,000 following measures such as bans on foreign workers and students bringing dependants, increases in the skilled worker salary threshold from £26,200 to £38,700 and curbing shortage occupation visa schemes.
Net migration stands at 685,000 for the year ending December 2023, which is down from a record high of 764,000 in 2022.
Sir Keir Starmer pledged to reduce net migration but has yet to provide a target figure. Ministers are working on measures to reduce British companies’ reliance on foreign labour and boost the training and recruitment of domestic UK workers.
Under the plans, bosses who break employment law – by failing to pay their staff the minimum wage for example – could be banned from hiring workers from overseas. Training will also be linked to immigration, meaning sectors applying for foreign worker visas must first train British workers to do the jobs.
Labour is continuing with nearly all the legal migration restrictions introduced by the Conservatives, although there is pressure to relax visa controls from some within the party’s ranks.