The UK’s immigration policy is putting overseas students off wanting to come and study in the country, a new survey has found.
UK International Students
The country’s current coalition government has pledged to cut immigration by tens of thousands by 2015, and while it has been insistent that overseas students are still very much welcome to come and study at British institutions, new rules regarding how long the students can stay in the UK for after finishing their studies appear to be making international students feel less welcome.
According to the study, which was carried out by YouthSight on behalf of Regents University London, and questioned international students at more than 100 institutions, 53 per cent of students from Asia and 46 per cent from North America stated that they had been made to feel less welcome by the recent changes to the UK’s immigration policy.
Aldwyn Cooper, the vice-chancellor of Regents University, said that the migration policy “risks alienating overseas students in the UK.”
In recent weeks Vince Cable, the UK’s Business Secretary, and Mayor of London Boris Johnson, a long-term supporter of international students, have both spoken out about their concerns at falling overseas student arrival numbers.
The latest overseas student figures, released last month, revealed that 190,000 foreign students arrived to study in the UK in the year to September 2012, a fall of 56,000 on the previous year.