Hyderabad: There is considerable uncertainty and speculation among students and stakeholders concerning British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s decision on the graduate course visa.
The scheme, which came into effect in 2021, has allowed international undergraduate and master's students to stay and work in the UK for up to two years after graduating from a UK university, or up to three years in the case of PhD students. These years facilitate graduates in seeking further employment opportunities through the skilled worker visa sponsorship.
The graduate route has helped attract a large number of students to UK universities, with an increase from 30,000 Indian students availing of the service in 2020 to one lakh in 2023, according to OneStep Global.
However, British Home Secretary James Cleverly in March this year commissioned a rapid review report from the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), an independent body, over his concerns that study visas are “driven more by a desire for immigration rather than education.”
The MAC released its report recently, stating that they would “lead to job losses, course closures, and a risk that some institutions would fail.” MAC found no evidence of widespread abuse of the scheme. Students from four countries — India, Nigeria, China, and Pakistan — account for 70 per cent of graduate visas. Indian students make up 42 per cent of the total share.
The National Indian Students and Alumni Union (NISAU) responded by stating that it was a political move and lacked economic reasoning.
Speaking to Deccan Chronicle, Sanam Arora, the president of NISAU, said, “The Conservative Party itself is quite divided on the issue. But you have voices on the extreme right who are quite against this route. It depends on where the Prime Minister lands and whether he's able to handle this political question.”
He cautioned that many students were misconstruing the committee’s report as the decision of the government.
There is also a possibility that the work time of two years might be cut down to six months or one year. “There are also talks of arbitrary conditions like connecting the graduate route to university rankings. Apparently, there's a lot of interest in this concept that we want the best and brightest students to come to the UK. The truth is that we're not going to get the best and brightest if the graduate route goes away. We're going to get only the rich and the richest,” Arora stated.
Aritra Ghosal, founder and director of OneStep Global, said there was a diligent attempt from people within the government to keep the graduate route intact.
“Whatever visa changes that might happen, they will not be applicable for this September intake. This is because generally, the intake is on the promise that the students would be allowed to stay in the UK for up to two years. If you scrap it in between, that becomes a legal issue,” Goshal said.
The uncertainty among the students has impacted multiple facets, a major impact being seen in an overall decline of about 44 per cent in application numbers. “With the MAC report, they may have gone up a little,” Goshal said.
Another major impact seen is on the deposit amount. Many students pay their first-semester fee before moving to the UK. With the graduate route going away, getting a refund might become difficult. “A lot of universities are being asked whether the change in the visa rules would affect the likelihood of the students getting a refund on the deposit. It all depends on the university policies,” Ghosal said.
Significantly, the deposits paid by international students help in the cross-subsidisation of the studies of domestic students. According to the MAC report, the number of international postgraduate students paying deposits to study at British universities this September had dropped by 63 per cent compared with the previous year, after the visa restrictions. The education-related exports brought revenue worth £27.90 billion in 2019, and international students contributed significantly to it.
Ghosal added that the government considering students as immigrants was a simplified and generic view. “Students stay only if they find employment, a suitable income, and are capable of paying taxes, in which case, they are generating a lot of revenue for the economy. To say that they might be looking for immigration is the wrong way to look at international students,” he said.
In their response to the review of the scheme, NISAU also urged the government to “remove international students from net migration targets. By design, students are not immigrants as they are in the country for a short period.”
