The government’s independent Migration Advisory Committee, in its report today on the impact of international students, concluded that international students benefit the wider economy and the public finances, with the average non-EEA student making a net fiscal contribution of more than £5,000 a year, compared to the average resident.
Moreover, contrary to some claims that domestic students lose out, they found that “the evidence suggests that the benefits of international students outweigh any negative impacts on the educational experience of domestic students”.
And they dismissed claims that international students had adverse impact on the wider communities in which they live.
Nevertheless, for the last eight years the government has pursued a policy of deliberately trying to reduce the number of international students coming to the UK; by tightening visa requirements, increasing fees, imposing new bureaucracy on universities, and, perhaps most egregiously, by expelling thousands of students falsely accused, on the flimsiest possible evidence, of cheating in English language tests.
UK firms will be “bitterly disappointed” that the government’s official advisory body on migration has not backed removing overseas students from official migration statistics, a leading business group has said.
“At a time when three-quarters of firms are struggling to fill job vacancies, it makes sense to attract and harness the talent of international students,” the British Chambers of Commerce (BCC) said. It also called in Theresa May’s government to axe its “arbitrary” target of reducing net migration to below 100,000.
The plea came in response to a long-awaited report by the independent MAC which recommended making it easier for some foreign students to work in the UK after they finish their studies. But the MAC stopped short of recommending post-study work visas and said overseas students should continue to be included in the government’s overall net migration target figures. The MAC say that this would be largely symbolic, extremely messy in practical terms, and would not magically solve the problem. As the MAC report strongly implies, the real issue is not the inclusion of students in the “tens of thousands” target, but the target itself.
However, Dame Janet Beer, of Universities UK said she was disappointed by the MAC’s recommendations. “While the UK continues to count international students as long-term migrants in its net migration target, there is a continued pressure to reduce their numbers. This adds to the perception that they are not welcome here.”
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