UK Universities could face financial meltdown with new foreign student family policy

The decision to cut down on the number of immigrants coming to the UK could result in some universities facing a serious financial crisis in the next few years.

Earlier this week, Home Secretary Suella Braverman, announced that foreign postgraduate students will be banned from bringing family members to Britain under government plans to reduce migration. The new rules will mean that only the partners and children of students on courses designated as research programmes will be allowed to apply to live in the UK.

According to the latest statistics, 136,000 visas were granted to dependants of sponsored students in 2022, an 800% increase in three years. Much of this is concentrated in five countries namely Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, India, and Nigeria (BSPIN). In fact, each Nigerian and Sri Lankan applicant will, on average, bring one dependent with them.

With this practice now being restricted by the UK Government, data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency indicates that there could be a major impact on higher education numbers and, consequently, the financial position of several universities if these students now stay away.

In 2021-22, there were over 160,000 postgraduate students from these five countries studying on taught courses in the UK (or 49% of the total number). However, several post-1992 institutions had as many as four out of five of their overseas postgraduates originating from BSPIN countries.

For example, the University of Hertfordshire has the highest number with 9,120 students (or 94% of its total overseas postgraduate population) followed by Coventry University (5,450 students) and Greenwich University (5,345 students). In contrast, very few of the UK’s top universities has any significant concentration of students from these five countries with China providing most of their international cohorts.

Approximately 40% of all non-UK students in Scotland originate from BSPIN countries with new universities such as Glasgow Caledonian, the University of the West of Scotland, and Edinburgh Napier University having the highest proportion of these students.

In Wales, 56% of overseas postgraduate students were recruited from the five countries although the proportion is being considerably higher at Cardiff Metropolitan University (86%), Glyndwr University (82%) and the University of South Wales (78%). The University of South Wales also has the highest number (2,070) of BSPIN students which has grown by over 600% in the last five years. And since its creation in 2014 through the mergers of Glamorgan and Newport universities, its home student population has declined by a fifth at a time when there has been an increase in UK students studying in universities.

If, for example, there was a decline of 50% in BSPIN numbers because of this new policy, it could cost Welsh universities around £60m per annum at a time when many institutions are struggling with their finances. Only the rural institutions of Aberystwyth University and the University of Wales Trinity St David will avoid any potential backlash with only 175 of these students based there.

So how has it come to this? Whilst international students add enormous value in so many ways, especially in attracting global talent to research programmes and generating income for universities and their local areas, it has been argued that some institutions have taken advantage of the changes in immigration policy to attract overseas students as cash cows to prop up declining home student numbers.

This seems to be borne out by the fact that it tends to be those lowest ranked institutions that are losing out to better institutions when recruiting home students and subsequently focusing their efforts on attracting students from non-UK countries to make up any financial shortfall.

There have also been concerns for some time that some students may have been using postgraduate programmes with low entry requirements – such as the Master of Business Administration – to bring their families into the UK. Then, when they have completed their courses, they switch onto the graduate visa route which allows individuals (and their dependants) to stay in the UK for up to two years without needing to get a job.

In fact, the Office for National Statistics recently suggested that this new visa route has been one of the key factors attracting international students to the UK with the percentage of postgraduates from BSPIN countries has increased by over 200% since this new visa was introduced.

There have also been concerns that many universities are ill-equipped to deal with the housing needs of overseas families. Universities UK (UUK) – the umbrella group for British universities – has admitted that the recent rise in dependant visas had led to local challenges over family accommodation and schooling, with many struggling when they arrive as most student accommodation is geared towards single people.

Therefore, this new edict from the UK Government will mean that students on taught postgraduate programmes in the future will no longer be able to bring their families with them. Given this, the question for those universities that have taken the easy option of over-recruiting from BSPIN countries is whether these students will continue to want to come to the UK without their dependents?

If the answer is no and with these students worth around £120m per annum to Welsh universities, any decline in this number could be financially devastating for those institutions that have gambled their future on a strategy that any business would have considered carefully before implementing.

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