New UK student visa rules will hit UK universities

United Kingdom, 18th May: Latest changes announced to UK student visa norms by the government are going to prove costly for universities.

Hence, British universities are calling for immediate changes to save loss worth millions of pounds each year.

Change UK student visa rules or get ready to lose millions—It is being claimed by the Universities UK that unless the UK works out to reform UK student visa rules as early as possible, it is going to face big losses each year. Universities UK is a representative body of a total of 134 higher education institutes in the UK.

According to Professor Eric Thomas, president of Universities UK, foreign students are being deterred from studying in the UK universities and UK colleges due to latest restrictions introduced to UK visa rules. He said declining number of enrolments in the UK universities will cost the universities between £5m and £7m.

Each year, foreign students bring around £5 billion to the nation’s economy and if revenue from EU students is also added to this, the total comes up to nearly £8 billion. So, a shift in the UK immigration policy is the need of the hour.

Highlights of the recent reforms for international students—New rules introduced by the Conservatives aim –

• To bring down immigration level to ‘tens of thousands’ by the year 2015;

• To restrict number of years for studying by non-EU students in the UK;

• Restricting total hours of paid work during their degree course and after completion of degree course in the UK;

• No right to bring children or spouses along unless they have enrollment in postgraduate course exceeding one year duration.

UK universities already bearing the brunt--Professor Thomas says the UK is benefiting not only financially but also culturally from nearly 405,000 foreign students currently studying at UK campuses.

And by toughening UK student visa rules, it will ruin many universities who are dependent on foreign students, including non-EU students.

These universities charge foreign students nearly four-times the fee charged from UK students. Recent restrictions have already caused a decline of 40 percent in the number of foreign student enrollments in one of the UK university this year.

And a fall of 39 percent has been reported this year by the vice-chancellor of Ashton University, Professor Julia King.