Restricting numbers of foreign students at UK universities

It has to be about getting immigration figures down. Students are an easy target.

Our local uni has a Business School, which seems to be constantly expanding. When my DD received her PhD (in an entirely different field) it was the day for the presentation of the Business School degrees. I would say that 90+% of the recipients were Asian. It's a huge money spinner for the uni...

As I understand it, most overseas students return home after completing their studies, but I haven't seen any data so can't verify this.

Theresa May was very suspicious of overseas students I recall...

but many of those 90% may have been uk students.

The problem is the infrastructure to cope with the volume of students. I live in Glasgow, which has three large universities and many colleges.

This year a large number of students were unable to begin their degrees because there was not enough accommodation for them.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/housing-shortage-university-of-glasgow-b2227907.html?amp

But surely the universities will still take the same number of students, so there will still be the demand for accommodation.

DS is an academic at one of the country's highest rated universitys. He is tearing his hair out over tis new policy. He wrote on Facebook:
Due to inadequate funding over the long-term, our universities have been forced increasingly to rely on foreign students to cross-subsidise UK students - we're being actively told to 'rebalance' the number of UK/Overseas students. All this is possible because of the international reputation of UK universities.

Overseas students are incredibly closely monitored, have to show evidence that they can economically support themselves and when they complete there are very strict rules about staying in the UK; the vast majority go home, and those that do stay do with permission and are rapidly in employment and paying taxes; the number of international students who who stay in the country without further permission is nugatory.

Typical of (a) the complete lack of even the semblance of joined up thinking in our government (b) the lazy, poisonous, unthinking racism at the heart of the administration.

I was the academic administrator at an Oxford college. All overseas students were kept an extra close eye on and a note made if they didn’t turn up for tutorials etc. At any time the UK border people could have come to my office and inspected my records. I made sure they were kept absolutely up to date.

Quite a number of my Chinese high school students came to the UK for university. They paid a fortune to be here and other than one girl who has married a British boy, have all gone back to Shanghai. No desire to stay here at all.

Most overseas students live in purpose built accommodation, built by specialist developers. This is built and serviced to a high standard and the rents are high. Most British students, quite simply, cannot afford the rents to live in them. They are the ones left homeless and bedding down in gyms etc

if these accommodation managers cannot let their properties at high rents to foreign students, they will just let them more widely to young people in work, they will not reduce the rents so that British students can afford them.