Why new visa rules may severely impact Indian grad students in Britain

London is brimming with young Indians – men and women – more so than in the past. Be it the person distributing the free copies of the Metro or Evening Standard outside the underground stations; the delivery person from Just Eat who brings your favourite food or the waiter in the local restaurant – they all have one thing in common. There are Indians, here on a student or their dependent visa.

The layman’s observation that there seems to be a sudden rise in Indian students in the UK has been borne out by a government ordered study carried out by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) released earlier this month. It shows that Indians have overtaken the Chinese as the largest nationality of international students in higher education institutions. With 1,39,700 Indians studying in Britain in 2022, they comprised 30 per cent of the total number of international students. The Chinese come a distant second at 1,08,200 students, a share of 23 per cent.

The largest absolute increase has been in postgraduate students from India, rising by over one lakh students between 2018-19 and 2022-23, and overtaking China. India has also seen the largest absolute increase in undergraduate students, with growth of 15,000 students over the same period.

While on the one hand India can celebrate that so many youngsters are going to the UK to study, unfortunately the real reason for their outing is not any scholastic endeavour, but unemployment in India. The students expect to work here, make money and return home with a little nest egg if they are unable to get permanent right of residence in Britain.

Easing entry

The massive rise in Indian students has been fuelled by the changes in visa rules which allow overseas students on undergraduate or master’s degrees to remain in the country and work for two years after they complete their courses. This Graduate Route visa was announced in September 2019 by the Boris Johnson government and enforced by the then Indian-origin home secretary Priti Patel in July 2021, after COVID restrictions were lifted.

Since then, 42 per cent of the 1,76,000 students granted a Graduate Route visa are Indian. Moreover, this visa also allows dependents of the student to come with them and live and work in the UK. Around 37,000 dependents have been granted visas through this scheme so far. Unlike the Skilled Workers visa, there is no restriction on the type of work that can be done by either the student or the dependent.

The MAC report points out that the Graduate Route visa has made the UK more attractive to international students and the short postgraduate courses are an appealing route for those who ultimately want to enter the UK labour market. What it also shows is that the growth in international students and therefore Indian students has largely been in the lower-cost courses being offered at less selective institutions.

The UK had been marketing its world-class education in India in the hope that it would attract more funds for universities, and also so that international graduate talent upon graduation would stay back and contribute to Britain’s economy. It hoped talented students would apply to the old renowned universities for their post-graduate courses which are highly selective in the calibre of students they offer places to and where the fees for a one-year course are in the region of £30,000 (about ₹30 lakhs).

Missing talent

However, the study has found that the graduate route is not attracting the global talent anticipated with the majority of the students applying to the plethora of new universities which offer cheaper courses and do not necessarily demand a high standard of academic excellence for a place at their institution. Of course, the education they provide is also nowhere near the standards that British education has been held up to in the past.

In a report given to the government in 2018, MAC had recommended against the introduction of a separate graduate visa due to the concerns that it would lead to an increase in low-wage migration and universities marketing themselves on post-study employment potential rather than educational quality. Their apprehensions have been borne out by the study conducted this year.

“The rise in student numbers is almost entirely focused on taught master’s degrees and the growth has been fastest in less selective and lower cost universities. The rise in the share of dependents is also consistent with this,” says the study. “Since both the applicant and an adult dependant can work both during the original study period and for two years on the graduate visa, the cost-benefit of enrolling in a degree has changed substantially,” it continues.

Some universities offer courses at a cost as low as around £5,000 (about ₹5 lakh) for one year. If an Indian student on a one-year postgraduate master’s brings an adult dependent with them, the couple could earn in the region of £1,15,000 (about ₹1.15 crore) even on minimum wage jobs during the course of their three years in the UK. Even after paying for their living expenses for three years, the couple can return home with a tidy sum they can never hope to earn, let alone save, in India in such a short span of time.

Economic hardships

“My husband and I took a loan in India to pay for his fees here and the initial cost of coming to London. We have managed to repay that and by keeping our costs low by sharing a house with two other couples we are able to save a large proportion of our income,” said Neha Solanki, who came to London from Rajkot in Gujarat. Neha works as a domestic help during the day and as a waitress in an Indian restaurant in the evenings. Both jobs are cash in hand so there is no need to pay tax.

She refused to divulge which university her husband went to or how much the fees were but said they were manageable. Her husband also does two jobs. Apart from working in a shop selling electrical goods for 20 hours a week which he is officially allowed to do as a student, he also helps out in the kitchen of an Indian restaurant in the evenings.

“There are no jobs in India. Here at least if you work hard, you get paid properly. If we have to go back once our three years here are finished, we will have saved enough money to start a small business back home” Solanki told The Federal.

After the release of the MAC report, Rishi Sunak’s government has decided to review the Graduate Route visa rules. With net migration into the UK this year reaching a record high of more than seven lakhs, Prime Minister Sunak is under a lot of pressure from right-wing Conservatives to reduce immigration – both legal and illegal.

New rules

In May this year, the UK government changed the rules banning students from bringing in dependents unless they were on a research-based course. With doctoral students only accounting for about 3 per cent of all international postgraduate students, this will have a large effect on the number of dependents coming into the UK once the rules come into effect in January 2024. It should also have a knock-on effect on applicants who are coming to the UK to earn rather than get an education.

New home secretary James Cleverly has announced that the Graduate Route visa rules would be reviewed “to prevent abuse and protect the integrity and quality of UK higher education”. As Indian students dominate this visa, any changes to this category will have a significant impact on Indian nationals.