The UK has announced a ban on overseas students bringing their families along, unless they are on PG research degrees. Also, they will no longer be allowed to switch from student visa to work routes until their studies are complete. The changes come into effect in Jan 2024.
“Immigration is too high. Today we’re taking radical action to bring it down,” Rishi Sunak, Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, tweeted on December 4, which sent a wave of worry across groups of Indian students who are already in the UK or aspire to go in the next few years. As Canada and Australia have also been tightening their immigration policies, including for student visas, the UK was not a country that Indians were expecting to hear this line from, especially at a time when the government is being led by someone of Indian heritage.
According to a report published by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) in 2018, there are over 750,000 students who head to the UK to study each year – in higher and further education, in independent and language schools. Some come for short English language courses, others for PhDs at the frontier of scientific research. Since that report, there has been a large rise in the number of student visas issued. The total number of visas issued in 2019 was 404,400, growing to 623,700 in 2022, as per the latest MAC report.
If we look at India-related data specifically, a total of 1,42,848 student visas were granted by the United Kingdom to Indian nationals in June 2023. It registered an increase of 54 per cent (49,883 more visas granted) than June 2022. Indian students made up one-third of the total sponsored study grants to main applicants, the highest amongst all nationalities, an official report released by the Home Office, Government of UK stated.
Currently, the British Indian population is the single largest visible ethnic minority population in the country – exceeding 1.8 million people in the UK. Even then, Indian students are now worried about heading to the UK. Why?
No to dependency
Rishi Sunak has announced a ban on overseas students bringing their families to the UK, unless they are on postgraduate research degrees. Additionally, international students will also no longer be allowed to switch from the student visa to work routes until their studies have been completed. These changes came into effect in January 2024.
Growth in international students at the undergraduate level has been around 10 per cent annually. As per data provided by the UK Home Office Management Information 2022, there were a total of 139,700 Indian students (30 per cent of the total) entering higher education in the UK in 2022-23. The majority of growth since 2019-20 has been in postgraduate study, which accounted for 74 per cent of all international students in 2022-23 compared to 65 per cent in 2019-20.
The data has also shown that international students, especially Indians, prefer the one-year Master’s degree, especially since it used to give them the option of bringing their family or spouse with them to the UK. The Chancellor of the University of Birmingham, Lord Karan Bilimoria, also believes that due to this tweak in the rule, the UK is “going to lose out on many high-quality masters students. So for example, the Dean of the London Business School wrote to me because I’m president of the UK Council of International Student Affairs. I’m also the co-chair of the old party parliamentary group on international students. And as an alumnus of the London Business School, he wrote a letter with the fact saying, do you realize it’s a huge proportion of our students who bring over dependents — and this is one of the top business schools in the world – And if they cannot bring dependents, we will lose the students,” he said.
Lord Bilimoria also shared another example from Cambridge Judge Business School where he asked one-year MBA students – 1/3rd of whom were international students – if they would still choose the UK even if they were not able to bring dependents, and “all of them raised their hands on they would not come to the UK by leaving their children or families behind,” he said.
The total number of dependants coming to the UK under student visas has increased significantly, and at a much faster pace than the rise in total student numbers, the MAC report states. The increase in student dependant visas has largely been driven by applicants from two countries: India and Nigeria. In 2015, these two countries accounted for only 11 per cent of dependants, but by 2022, they accounted for 73 per cent of dependants. In 2022, 23 per cent of student visas for Indian nationals were for dependants.
However, now with this change, Indian students fear they will feel unwelcome in the UK, especially in Master’s programmes. “The recent changes in UK visa regulations have prompted me to carefully consider potential impacts on my academic and professional journey. The heightened measures raise concerns about securing employment opportunities post-graduation and the overall feasibility of pursuing a career in the UK. Additionally, the stringent visa processes and immigration policies will influence my decision to pursue higher education in the UK,” said a Mumbai student who is enrolled at the University of Edinburgh for LLM Corporate Law course.
“I am now prompted to look at neighbouring countries to undertake my PhD. These measures not only influence my immediate decisions about studying abroad but also shape my long-term strategies for establishing a career in the evolving landscape of the UK job market,” the student added.
Experts also believe that students not being able to bring their family with them can negatively affect the mental health of the Master’s degree students. “For some, it may lead to increased financial burden as they would need to find alternative childcare arrangements or pay for their dependents to return to India, which could put a strain on their finances. It could also lead to emotional isolation as those students who are not able to bring their families with them may feel lonely and isolated, which could negatively impact their mental health and well-being,” said Mayank Maheswari, COO of University Living, a global student housing platform.