The UK’s independent Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) has been commissioned to review the Graduate Route visa by UK Home Secretary James Cleverly to ensure it is “fit for purpose” and is expected to report by next month.
Indian students have already begun to show signs of being put off applying to British universities, with the latest Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) figures revealing a 4 per cent drop in applications from India. Now, the National Indian Students and Alumni Union (NISAU) UK has launched a “Fair Visa, Fair Chance” campaign to highlight the many positives of the Graduate Route visa, which allows international students the chance to stay on for up to two years after their degree to gain work experience.
Lord Karan Bilimoria, Co-Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) on International Students and patron of NISAU UK, said: “The ability to work for two years post graduation helps international students to earn money to help pay for their degrees and enable some to get valuable work experience as well as to continue to build the strong links with the UK.
“We are in a global race and have to offer post-graduation work opportunities that are attractive in competing with countries, such as the United States of America, Canada, and Australia. The fear of the removal of the two-year post-graduation work visa is sending out unnecessary and damaging negative messages around the world, and universities are already seeing a huge decline in international students’ applications.
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“As a result, we are unnecessarily shooting ourselves in the foot as a country, when international students contribute £42 billion to the UK economy and are one of our strongest elements of soft power with a quarter of world leaders today having been educated at UK universities.”
Since its relaunch in 2020-21 after years of relentless campaigning by Lord Bilimoria and NISAU UK, the Home Office says a total of 213,250 visas have been granted under the route – with Indians making up 43 per cent of grants.
NISAU UK Chair Sanam Arora said: “It is very sad that a mere few years on from the re-introduction of post-study working in the UK, we are having to once again make the case to defend it. The Graduate visa is a key requirement of Indian students, and a critical offer of the UK’s international higher education system.
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“We campaigned for seven years to bring it back last time and will fight to protect this essential pathway again. Without the Graduate route, university finances may collapse. The impact of this not just on international students but also on UK’s home students will be bad, given domestic students and the world-class research that happens in UK universities is heavily cross-subsidised by international students. We have a duty to protect outcomes for all students and for the whole international higher education sector.”
The group is among the organisations invited to present evidence to the MAC inquiry and plans to highlight the Graduate visa’s many positives as an unsponsored route that allows talented graduates the chance to find jobs or even start lucrative businesses that benefit the UK economy.
