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If economic growth really is the priority of this Labour government – and, force majeure, it has to be – then the government needs to look again at its plans to further restrict the visas available to foreign students. The impact assessment conducted by the Home Office itself suggests that the national income could be £1.2bn lower as a result over the next five years, with the possibility that the figure might turn out be some £4.4bn, and at “best”, a hit of £800m. The loss of income and “critical mass” that will be inflicted on universities across the country, especially the newer ones in towns and smaller cities, will also diminish the opportunities available to young people from the UK, and weaken, if not remove, places of pride and learning in “left behind” areas, too long deprived of centres for further learning. For many, it would be ruinous. The damage, in other words, will be disproportionately felt in those areas that can least afford to lose these potential engines of growth and culture - as well as world-class names. Some will have rapidly expanded in recent decades using borrowed money - a sudden cut in their fee income could send some of them bust. The sums of money generated by higher education are substantial, but they are based on an essentially static analysis of the position. What is being grievously underestimated, presumably for lack of imagination, is the way that a further expansion in student visa numbers could easily boost economic growth and the export earnings of the sector. The most recent data indicates that the higher education sector earns £23.7bn a year for the balance of payments. Given that education represents one of the UK’s most formidable comparative advantages in a fiercely competitive world economy, it seems asinine to try and artificially restrict its growth, and, indeed, to push it into decline. It is always worth bearing in mind in all such discussions that fee income from international students effectively subsidises the teaching of British students and the research and innovation that are key to future industrial revolutions. This, in fact, applies to some of the more prestigious and globally-focused colleges, such as University College London, Edinburgh University and Imperial College. And for what? An entirely politically driven attempt to push the net migration numbers down. That would be short-sighted enough, but, worse, it is based on a majestic misunderstanding. The admittedly now large flows of students and graduates in and out of the UK can inflate both net and gross migration statistics in an unsynchronised fashion – most glaringly when the pandemic left students stranded either in the UK, or waiting to come and take up their studies. The addition of family members – now more severely rationed - also distorted the picture. Yet the fundamental point about most foreign students is that they are precisely that – students. When they complete their courses they mostly go home. They may apply for a visa to work as jobs after graduation, but there is no necessary reason to suppose that they will become permanently resident in the UK, not that that is in any case an undesirable outcome for a person who can make a substantial contrition to Britain. If public concerns about immigration centre on unskilled migrants coming by irregular means to reside in the UK indefinitely, then targeting students holding visas is precisely the wrong thing to do. In the case of higher education the government should place the interests of the British people first - and allow more foreign students to help drive the UK GDP higher and augment what should be a vibrant and expanding sector. The crisis of independence in the American universities is national one of the many opportunities that UK universities could exploit to great advantage. It’s time for ministers to take the students out of the immigration figures, and to more closely study the case for the universities’ freedom to expand without arbitrary handicaps being placed upon them. You don’t need a master’s degree to see how health of the economy depends on it
