The Home Office is considering a plan nearly to halve international student visas. The impact has already been seen, leading to the refusal of some good overseas applicants for spurious reasons.
There have already been plans for immigration control, according to senior university sources. One of the options is to cut the current number of international students from 300,000 to 170,000 a year. This possible cutback could then slash more than two thirds of overseas students.
At the Conservative party conference in October, the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd, announced a crackdown on overseas students and work visas. This includes tougher visa rules for “lower quality” universities and courses.
But the move has been causing dismay in universities. Vice-chancellors say some students have already been rejected after application interviews, simply because they failed to answer certain questions such as “What is the university library opening time?” or “What is the name of the vice-chancellor at his university?”
According to Universities UK, overseas students contribute to more than £10.7bn to the UK economy. One university head, who does not want to be named, criticised the proposal as “insane”, saying that “politics is trumping economics.”
In response to the plan, NUS international students’ officer, Mostafa Rajaai said, “We are extremely worried how the basic rights of so many international students have been taken away from them over the past few years.”
The Home Office dismissed the claim that more than two thirds of international students could be cut. However, it did not deny plans to reduce the student number to 170,000.
But most UK people welcome overseas students and believe they should be exempt from immigration statistics, according to a recent ComRes poll.
The possible move has caused a lot of opposition across social media platform.
@guardian Unbelievably stupid will damage trade & future goodwill 2 UK from other countries. #brexit has caused #Tory 2 take leave of senses
— LK Turner (@openpodbaydoor_) December 12, 2016
One of the tweets says, “(This is) unbelievably stupid (and) will damage trade and future goodwill to UK from other countries. Brexit has caused Tory to take leave of senses.”