‘Foreign students avoiding UK over unfavourable atmosphere’ — Birkbeck varsity VC laments

David Latchman, the vice-chancellor of the Birkbeck, University of London, says foreign students are dropping out of UK varsities due to an “unfavourable atmosphere” created by the government.

In May last year, the UK government announced that it would restrict foreign students from bringing family members with them from 2024.

The Home Office said the decision was intended to stop people from using the student visa as a backdoor route to work in the UK.

But according to The Telegraph, Latchman said Birkbeck varsity saw a 10% drop in overseas students since October after many of them who had accepted their admissions pulled out.

It was gathered the students who pulled out had applied in January last year and accepted places in June but did not show up to the varsity.

Latcheman blamed the development on the new reforms introduced by the UK government.

“This has occurred across the sector – I attribute this to the generally unfavourable atmosphere created for international students by the various announcements even though the ban on dependants does not actually begin until January,” the VC lamented.

The professor, who will be stepping down as VC this week after 20 years, said the university funding system was “unsustainable”.

“I think there’s a total failure to understand that you can’t have a business in inverted commas where you say your business has two products – over here, you can’t charge more than this, however much the costs increase [for domestic students],” he said.

“And over here, I’m going to do our best to discourage people from taking up your business where you can charge more [for international students].

“We can’t carry on like this.”

It is also understood that there was a decline in the number of accepted international students in 2023.

According to figures by the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS), for international students from outside the European Union, there were 61,055 acceptances for 2023, down 2% from 62,455 in 2022 — but 34% up from 45,455 in 2019.

NIGERIANS AFFECTED THE MOST

The crackdown will affect many Nigerian students hoping to pursue their postgraduate studies in the UK, as they accounted for the highest increase in the number of dependants accompanying persons with study visas in 2022.

Nigerian nationals also accounted for the largest increase in sponsored study grants compared with 2019, rising by 57,545 (+686%) to a record high of 65,929, making them the third largest nationality group.