New data released by the British Home Office has exposed an Achilles’ heel in UK universities’ recruitment of international students, with figures showing that 16,000 asylum claims were made in 2024 by people who first came to the country on study visas.

The revelation, made in new Home Office transparency data on the source of asylum claims in 2024, sent shockwaves around the higher education sector after it was highlighted extensively in the national media following a clear briefing exercise by government insiders.

The timing – ahead of an immigration white paper which could be published as early as next week – couldn’t be worse for UK universities as they face another battle to conserve the Graduate Route, which provides two years of post-study work opportunities for foreign students after they graduate in the UK.

Higher education stakeholders fear the white paper is likely to herald restrictions on foreign students, particularly those coming from Pakistan, Nigeria and Sri Lanka, which the Home Office has identified as the countries with the highest numbers entering the UK on either a study or work visa and then saying they are destitute and need asylum support in the form of accommodation in hotels or other housing.

Tougher ‘eligibility’ checks

Yvette Cooper, the home secretary, has already called for tougher “eligibility” checks to root out abuse, telling The Sunday Times: “We have people who are in the asylum accommodation system who arrived in the UK on a student visa or a work visa and who then only claimed asylum at the end of their visa.

“They have then gone into the asylum accommodation system even though when they arrived in the country, they said they had the funding to support themselves.”

The Home Office identified almost 10,000 such cases last year out of the 40,000 asylum claims from people who held a visa. The government’s immigration system statistics for the year ending December 2024 show that of the 108,000 people claiming asylum in 2024, just under a third (35,000) had arrived on a small boat without permission to enter.

The issue has risen sharply up the political agenda after the anti-immigration Reform Party, led by Nigel Farage, a close ally of US President Donald Trump, made sweeping gains in British local elections on 1 May 2025.

The newish Labour government led by Sir Keir Starmer now hopes to stop Reform making further inroads by reducing net migration, which stood at 728,000 last year.

UK universities fear that cutting international students and increasing the skills or salaries required to stay on the two-year Graduate Route may be seen as easy options.

Hence, higher education leaders’ reluctance to talk about study visa switchers, particularly as they now rely on the lucrative income from much-higher international student tuition fees to keep them financially afloat.

But one sector leader prepared to speak to University World News in a personal capacity was Dr David Pilsbury, a long-standing international higher education expert and former deputy vice-chancellor, international at Coventry University.

‘All abuse is significant’

He said: “The sector needs to recognise and engage with the issue of visa abuse as outlined by the government.

“The absolutely worst thing we can do is claim it isn’t happening or that it is ‘insignificant’. All visa abuse is significant, and we need to have measures that are targeted and will be demonstrably effective.”

Pilsbury called for “surgical interventions to cut out the problem” and warned against a heavy-handed “baseball bat approach that tries to beat the issue into submission and harms the patient without solving things”.

Dr Diana Beech, director of the Finsbury Institute at City St George’s, University of London, and a former government adviser on higher education policy, was also willing to raise her head above the parapet.

She told University World News: “For universities concentrating on their role as legitimate entry points to the UK, visa switchers have long been seen as something out of their control.

“However, the Home Office sees things differently!”

“To avoid the mooted restrictions on visa numbers, universities need to make visa switching their business too and find ways to show they are undertaking vigorous filtering of the students they admit to ensure they are coming to the UK for legitimate study purposes, not as a backdoor to asylum,” she noted.

A need for action

Beech claimed that the UK Agent Quality Framework, a joint initiative by the British Council and other key organisations involved with international student recruitment to the UK, was already promoting ethical practice by education agents and showed both recognition of the problem and “intent to fix it”.

However, Beech said: “The Home Office wants to see evidence of universities actively breaking partnerships with agents or raising concerns over individual students in cases where visa fraud becomes apparent.

“Actions are the currency that is needed now, not just words, and the window of opportunity to show them is closing fast.”

Anne-Marie Graham, chief executive of the UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA), a charity supporting international students in the UK, warned the government against undermining overseas students, whose number in the UK fell by 7% last year, as University World News has reported.

Graham said: “What we’d like to see in the immigration white paper is the government demonstrating support for international students coming to the UK for higher education. They are investing a lot in this country, and many UK universities could not survive without them.”

Graduate Route

She also wants the British government to give its “stamp of approval to the Graduate Route”, which has been subject to almost continuous uncertainty about its future since being reintroduced by the previous Conservative government and was subject to a major review last year that found it was not being abused.

Graham said: “Now is the time to promote the Graduate Route and end the speculation about its future and explain the mechanics so that employers have the continued confidence to hire foreign graduates to fill skills gaps.

“Many small to medium-sized enterprises don’t understand the details or what they might perceive as the benefits and risks of using the route,” she said.

James Pitman, chair of Independent Higher Education and Study Group managing director for UK and Europe, told University World News that any restrictions to the Graduate Route would harm recruitment from key markets, including India, with which the UK has recently struck a trade deal.

He said their data showed that as many as 60% of Indian students (110,006 study visas were issued to Indian students in 2024) could be lost to UK higher education if the Graduate Route were scrapped or seriously weakened.

Sanctuary for genuine cases

Speaking to University World News in her capacity as the founder of the #WeAreInternational campaign, Ruth Arnold said the British government needs to be careful to strike the right balance between stopping any abuses in the higher education recruitment system and preserving “the UK’s honourable tradition of offering academic sanctuary in cases of real need”.

Arnold worked closely with Afghan Chevening scholars who fled the Taliban in 2021 and said care was necessary in how the UK deals with the issue of asylum and higher education in the forthcoming white paper.

“Everyone wants to ensure the system welcomes genuine students, and we work together to tackle abuse where it exists. But we also need to remember our own history.

“In 1946 the poet laureate John Masefield described universities as precious institutions ready to ‘welcome thinkers in distress or in exile’,” she stated.

“In World War II that meant offering refuge to scholars fleeing fascism, including 16 future Nobel laureates, 74 fellows of the Royal Society and 34 of the British Academy. Those to whom we offered asylum then helped defeat the Nazis and went on to build the scientific reputation of UK universities across the world.

“Today it is still true that the UK offers a safe haven to a modest number of scientists, historians and artists who face persecution in their own lands – students like the Afghan Cheveners whose courage and dedication to education are a lesson to us all,” she noted.

Concern over STEM visa policy

In a similar spirit, the UK’s House of Lords Science and Technology Committee has written to the prime minister, home secretary, chancellor, and science minister to express deep concern with the UK’s immigration and visa policy for STEM talent.

The committee says: “The situation has become much more urgent following increasing global competition for STEM talent due to the science funding policies of the US administration,” which have left many scientists seeking to relocate.

Many countries have already announced programmes to encourage US scientists to move to their universities and research centres.

The committee warns that without changes to immigration policy for STEM talent, the UK will miss a real opportunity to drive economic growth and to build its research base in science, technology, and other vital areas.

It calls for reforms to upfront visa costs and new policies to encourage US scientists to the UK and warns that Britain’s approach to STEM talent for academia and industry is “an act of national self-harm”, and its visa and immigration policy needs to adapt and recognise the global competition for talented individuals in science and technology.

Nic Mitchell is a UK-based freelance journalist and PR consultant specialising in European and international higher education. He blogs at www.delacourcommunications.com.