Large numbers of UK universities are at risk of falling into financial deficit due to a sharp decline in international students after hostile rhetoric by Rishi Sunak’s government, the head of the sector’s main lobby group has warned.
Vivienne Stern, the chief executive of Universities UK, which represents more than 140 universities, said the sector was facing the prospect of a “serious overcorrection” thanks to immigration policies that deterred international students from coming to study in Britain.
“If they want to cool things down, that’s one thing, but it seems to me that through a combination of rhetoric, which is off-putting, and policy changes . . .[they have] really turned a whole bunch of people off that would otherwise have come to the UK,” Stern told the Financial Times.
“The government needs to be very careful: we could end up with, from a policy point of view, what I would consider a serious overcorrection,” she added.
With the £9,250 domestic tuition fee effectively frozen for the past decade, UK universities have become increasingly reliant on non-EU students to make ends meet, with fees from non-EU students now accounting for nearly 20 per cent of sector income.
This news comes few months after The United Kingdom through its Home Office announced the commencement of the implementation of its dependant visa ban which prohibits Nigerian students and other foreigners from bringing family members.
The announcement was made via X by the UK’s Home Office on Monday reiterating that only foreign students in postgraduate research or government-sponsored scholarship could bring their dependants through the study visas.
The Home Office under Suella Braverman, in May 2023, instituted the policy to stop Nigerian students, and others studying in the UK from bringing family as dependents except under specific circumstances.
