International student deposits in UK dive after graduate visas tightened

The number of international students paying deposits to study at UK universities has “plummeted” after Prime Minister Rishi Sunak put restrictions on education visas, according to industry data given to the government’s independent adviser on migration.

Enroly, a web platform used by one in three international students for managing university enrolment, said deposits to a representative sample of 24 British universities had declined 57 per cent year on year as of May.

The data, shared directly with the Financial Times, will form part of a Migration Advisory Committee report set to be published on Tuesday into whether the government should continue to let international students stay and work in the UK for two years after graduation.

The study into the “graduate visa route” was commissioned in March by home secretary James Cleverly to investigate concerns that graduate visas were being used as a backdoor immigration route rather than “attracting and retaining the best and brightest students”.

Jeffrey Williams, Enroly’s chief executive, said the company’s analysis showed “international student deposits, a key indicator of future enrolments, have plummeted”.

“This steep decline signals a significant drop in the UK’s attractiveness as a study destination. With such a drastic year-on-year reduction, further restrictive policies could exacerbate an already critical situation,” he added.

The Enroly data for the September 2024 entry period includes postgraduate students who were hit by Sunak’s decision last year to heavily restrict visas that allowed them to bring their family members to the UK.

Ministers are expected to make a decision on whether to axe the graduate route as early as this week. Sunak is under pressure from the right of the Conservative party to abolish it ahead of the upcoming general election to show the Tories are serious about cutting legal net migration after it exceeded a record 640,000 in the year to June 2023.

Last week Robert Jenrick, former immigration minister who quit Sunak’s government in December, issued a report with the conservative Centre for Policy Studies think-tank calling for the graduate visa route to be abolished.

But in recent weeks Sunak and chancellor Jeremy Hunt have also been subjected to a barrage of lobbying from the education sector arguing that the graduate visa is vital for the UK’s ability to compete in the global market for talent.

University and industry leaders have argued that any move to further crimp education visas will inflict significant damage on a sector that relies on foreign fee income for more than a fifth of its revenues. Overseas students typically pay two or three times the fees paid by domestic students.

Student migration to the UK reached a record high in 2022, with about 484,000 sponsored study visas issued, a 38 per cent increase from 2021 when the graduate visa route was reintroduced. A previous version was abolished in 2012.

In 2021-22 there were 820,310 postgraduates studying in the UK, of which almost half, or 372,500 were from overseas — up from about one-third in 2017-18.

A letter last week co-signed by the heads of 17 local chambers of commerce warned that abolition of the graduate visa route and the resultant loss of income from international students would have “a serious impact” on R&D capacity in the UK.

Jane Harrington, vice-chancellor of the University of Greenwich and chair of University Alliance that co-ordinated the letter, said ending the route would be “an extraordinary economic own goal”.

Abolishing the graduate route could also have a significant impact on undergraduate applications, which have recently seen markedly slower annual growth but not yet a decline.

In January, data from the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service showed undergraduate international applications were 0.7 per cent higher than the previous year as of January. 

FT analysis of the data showed one-third of institutions had seen a decline in overseas applicants, indicating uneven impacts across the sector.

A survey last month of 75 universities by the British Universities’ International Liaison Association, which represents the international recruitment sector, found that almost nine out of 10 reported a year-on-year decrease in postgraduate applications from international students for the September 2024 intake.

For undergraduate applications, nearly two-thirds of those surveyed reported a reduction, according to the survey.

A senior government official said the government’s position on the graduate visa route had not been pre-determined. “We are waiting for the MAC report before we decide which direction to go. You can expect James Cleverly to read the MAC report and take a decision based on that,” the official added.

Labour, which is leading in the polls ahead of the upcoming general election, declined to set out its position before the MAC report is published.

The Home Office said: “We are fully focused on striking the right balance between acting decisively to tackle net migration and attracting the best and brightest students to study at our universities, recognising the significant contribution they make to the UK.”