Response To Nus Briefing On International Students

• The
  majority of students leave at the end of their studies.

There
is no evidence to support this claim. The IPS still cannot distinguish
departing workers from departing students.  
A recent Home Office study of a sample of cases, ‘The Migrant Journey’,
found that after five years, 20% of students remained in the UK legally. The
other 80% were described as “no longer in the immigration system”.  However, this is not evidence that they had
left the UK.

• International
  students were worth £8 billion to the UK economy in 2008/09.[1]

Migration
Watch UK estimate that non-EU students were in fact worth £4.3 billion, of
which £2.1 billion came from tuition fees.[2]

• The UK
  is beginning to look less attractive to international students.
   

Results
of an NUS survey suggest that 40% of students would not recommend the UK as a
place to study. However, Mr David Willetts, revealed that UCAS applications
from outside the EU were up by 13% on the previous year.[3]
 

• The UK
  has lost share in the global market for international students.

The NUS
claim that the UK’s share fell from 10.8% in 2000 to 9.9% in 2009. In fact,
student numbers rose from 223,000 to 363,000. A more appropriate measure of the
UK share is that of students who go to MESDCs – Mainly English speaking destination
countries. The UK had 24.6% of this market in 2000, falling slightly to 23.6%
in 2009.

• The
  timing of the revocation of LMU’s licence is “alarming”

It
would seem however that LMU was given a deadline by the UKBA within which to
address compliance issues found at an earlier inspection. The situation, it is
claimed, had not been addressed satisfactorily so the licence was revoked.

• Reducing
  student inflows reduces outflows in later years, producing a minimal long term
  impact on net migration.   

Bogus
students kept out reduce net migration by the same amount as they would not
have left at the end of their courses.  A
reduction in genuine students reduces net migration by about
20% of the fall.