UNITED KINGDOM-CANADA-AUSTRALIA

In May the United Kingdom higher education sector was standing on the edge of a precipice. The number of international student visas was down 27%, primarily because of the dependant visa ban on postgraduate students, affecting in particular those from India, Nigeria and Pakistan, and data from Enroly showed a 57% decrease in international student deposits for September 2024, as compared with the previous year.

The Migration Advisory Committee’s accelerated review of the Graduate Route was about to report and UK net immigration numbers were due to be published, while the government was languishing in the opinion polls.

Then everything changed. The Migration Advisory Committee reported that the Graduate Route should remain unchanged, immigration figures were down 10% and, most surprising of all, UK Prime Minister Rishi Sunak called the general election for 4 July 2024, when most political hawks had indicated a November date would be the most likely.

Australian caps

At the same time, however, there have been significant developments in both Australia and Canada pertaining to international students.

Most recently Australia has restricted so-called ‘visa hopping’. Visitor visa holders will not be able to apply for student visas within Australia, putting paid to the 36,000 applications received between July 2023 and May 2024.

Plus, to quote the media release from Clare O’Neil, minister for home affairs and cyber security: “Temporary Graduate Visa Holders will not be able to apply for Student Visas whilst onshore. In their recent Graduates in Limbo report, the Grattan Institute found that 32% of Temporary Graduate Visas Holders are returning to study when their visa expires to prolong their stay in Australia.”

In addition, Australian Minister for Education Jason Clare recently told Sky News that a lot of universities, in particular the smaller universities, have advocated for the government to set a level or cap student enrolments for each and every year to mitigate the risk of significant fluctuations. The minister did not reveal which universities had called for this course of action.

As University World News has reported, the Australian government has inserted a proposal for capping international student numbers into its draft International Education and Skills Strategic Framework.

Not only that, but there are also rumours that Australia may be planning to remove some business, management and marketing courses from the Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students.

In December 2023, during his speech at the EduSummit in Sydney, MP Julian Hill announced a significant policy shift: the Australian government is planning to reduce the number of international students enrolled in business, management and marketing courses.

This revelation has sparked intense debate and speculation within the education sector, particularly concerning how this change will be implemented.

This would be an absolute disaster for the Australian Vocational Education and Training (VET) and university sectors. Even if it was just applied to limited courses in the VET sector, it would have significant implications for the whole of the Australian sector, indicating to prospective international students that business, management and marketing courses offered in Australia do not lead to good jobs.

Canadian restrictions

Turning to Canada, earlier this year the Canadian government restricted public-private partnership colleges from recruiting international students and have restricted postgraduate work visas almost exclusively to those students studying at state-run institutions.

In addition, future postgraduate work visas may be restricted to students studying the courses that are most in demand by Canadian employers, which would rule out most business courses, the largest draw for international students.

Not unlike in Australia, business and management courses will be the most at risk and they too are the most popular and most cost effective to deliver for Canadian institutions.

Plus, it looks as if the Canadian government is reluctant to exempt existing international students. This would be particularly damaging as it would roll back on an implied promise to international students, that post-study work would be available to them following their degree, doing irreparable damage to Canada’s reputation as a desirable study destination.

In addition, earlier this year Canada capped their international student numbers, reducing them by 20%.

To put this into a UK context, in 2021-22 there were 680,000 international students studying in the UK. Unfortunately, due to the delay in the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) reporting, we will not have any more up to date figures until August.

If we go by the 680,000 figure and UK international student numbers were capped at 80% of that figure – a reduction of 20% – that would be a 136,000 reduction in UK international students, and the income derived from their tuition fees. This is likely in the region of £1.4 billion (US$1.8 billion), revenue desperately needed by the sector at the present time due to severe cost-cutting and redundancies announced at over 60 UK universities.

Two scenarios

So where does the UK stand and, as has been widely publicised, has the UK in fact ‘dodged a bullet’ when it comes to retaining the Graduate Route and the fact that all policies are now in limbo prior to an election?

Two scenarios spring to mind. One is that the UK rebounds strongly following policies adversely impacting existing and prospective international students in Australia and Canada. UK universities all breathe a sigh of relief because, while they may be subject to cost-cutting and some redundancies, it could have been far worse.

The second and more likely scenario in our opinion is that the damage is already done. The ban on dependants from January 2024 and bad headlines in both the UK and overseas press regarding the Graduate Route review will have put many students off applying to study in the UK.

Plus, with an election on the cards, a likely opposition victory and no guarantees regarding the Graduate Route from any of the parties concerned, it may be that uncertainty will detract from the UK as an attractive study destination.

The other thing counting against the UK rebounding is that many of these policy announcements are incomprehensible to most prospective students who are not ‘au fait’ with the education systems of the various English study destinations.

A lack of understanding regarding the various policy changes and general confusion surrounding their options may in fact lead to fewer students choosing to study abroad altogether. In this scenario everybody loses.

What next?

So, what should the UK and other leading study destinations do when faced with these challenges and to mitigate present and future risks to their international student recruitment?

In all instances the issues arise from rising immigration so higher education institutions must recognise this and pivot away from a reliance on post-study work as a means of international student recruitment and focus on supporting students’ transition to successful careers back in their home countries, for instance by having the right data to help them know where the openings are.

This not only builds soft power overseas, something much needed considering the present geopolitical tensions afflicting the world, but it also redeploys skills where they are most needed.

Alakh Pandey, the founder of PhysicsWallah, made a similar plea to Indian students studying at Harvard, Stanford and the University of California, Berkeley, encouraging them to return home and build their careers in India, to “directly or indirectly” contribute to their own country’s progress. “Hamare desh me bahut kamiya hai, par …”, literally translated as “there are many shortages in our country”.

Let’s not exacerbate the problems faced in India and other developing countries by discouraging their skilled graduates from returning home with promises of graduate jobs which, in the majority of cases, are left unfulfilled.

Louise Nicol is founder of alsocan and Asia Careers Group SDN BHD.

This article is a commentary. Commentary articles are the opinion of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of University World News.