On Tuesday, the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) published its review of the Graduate Visa. The review was commissioned by the Government upon allegations by the Home Secretary that people were engaged in “immigration abuse or visa exploitation” by coming to the UK primarily for post-study work opportunities, instead of the studying itself. This followed the restrictions on international students bringing dependants introduced at the beginning of the year and the increase in minimum salary thresholds, which will affect graduates staying in the UK beyond the end of their Graduate Visa.
Effect of recent changes
It has been widely reported that application numbers for international students have significantly dropped following the ban on dependants for most students. This, plus the increase in the salary thresholds for people on a Skilled Worker Visa, will impact the number of international graduates who stay in the UK to work after the expiry of their Graduate Visa. The MAC estimated that this will drop from around 70,000 people in 2023 (out of 114,000 students who took up the Graduate Visa) to around 26,000 of this year’s graduates.
Findings and recommendations
The MAC review recommends keeping the two-year Graduate Visa, having found no evidence of “abuse” of the route. It also states that the graduate route is a key pull for international students to the UK, which is essential to the higher education sector as domestic fees are frozen.
Instead, it raised the issue of exploitation of international students by recruitment agents, who we know anecdotally that some are illegally charging students thousands of pounds and misleading them on life in the UK. As such, the MAC recommends mandatory registration for recruitment agents, including the quality controls in the (currently) voluntary Agent Quality Framework (AQF). They also recommend that universities should be required to publish data on their spending on recruitment agents and the number of students recruited through them annually, for greater transparency.
It refuted other claims the Government made, including that “the majority of international students switching from the graduate route into the skilled worker route go into care work” – only 20% do. After a year, their earnings and occupations are typically similar to that of domestic graduates. However, the review does recommend greater collaboration between the Government and the higher education sector to steer international graduates towards the Government’s “desired labour market objectives” into “priority occupations and sectors”.
The MAC rejected Government phrasing of measuring whether “the brightest and best” are being attracted and retained, as it was too vague. Looking at the global ranking of universities that people previously studied was seen to potentially be more of a signifier of wealth and other factors, not necessarily ‘talent’. However, they did recommend that the Home Office introduces a requirement for universities to provide confirmation of the course outcome (e.g. class of degree), as currently only confirmation of course completion is required for the Graduate Visa.
Check out our work on International Students as part of our Hostile Office campaign.