Reductions on Overseas Students - how will it impact your university?
A common complaint amongst the political classes is that 'you can't talk about immigration', but as an immigration lawyer it seems that many politicians talk about little else
At the Conservative Party conference which took place in Birmingham at the beginning of October, immigration was a key theme in the speech given by the Home Secretary, Amber Rudd. Ms Rudd reconfirmed the government's commitment to reducing net migration to the tens of thousands and identified the Tier 4 student category as one which could be targeted to help it to meet that objective.
In her speech, Ms Rudd proposed linking student visas to the quality of university and course on offer. She mooted the possibility of introducing preferential rules for those studying at 'better' universities (or tighter rules for foreign students attending 'poorer quality' universities and courses). Such a regime would be in addition to the preferential rules which are already in place for students applying from certain countries who are subject to less strict documentary requirements.
Ms Rudd's speech was at the Conservative party conference, so is not an announcement of official government policy, but it is a clear indication of her line of thinking. Introducing such rules would clearly cause big problems for those universities deemed to be of 'poorer quality'. The government have released no details of how such an assessment would be made, so the extent to which this affects any particular university remains to be seen, but many universities have expressed concern that the government will seek to use the controversial Teaching Excellence Framework when conducting such an assessment.
Some Vice-Chancellors have also repeated their calls for international students to be removed from the net migration target given the relatively short periods for which the overwhelming majority stay in the UK. The Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, appeared to be open to such an approach when giving evidence to the Treasury Select Committee recently, but a spokesman for the Prime Minister quickly reconfirmed that the government were not reviewing how the net migration figures are calculated.
In spite of this uncertainty - seemingly from within the government itself - what is clear from Ms Rudd's speech is that there is still a strong desire to reduce immigration and that international students and universities are very likely to bear the brunt of further reforms to the immigration system.
We shall continue to monitor the situation and keep you informed.
Tom Brett Young has recently joined our immigration team as an associate. He advises clients, including universities, on all aspects of UK immigration law and provides training on immigration issues.