University of Birmingham’s vice-chancellor has suggested that some institutions are abusing the “intent” of tougher visa policies by marketing MRes courses as a way for international students to bring their family members to the UK with them.

“These are tiny numbers – but they really matter,” Adam Tickell urged delegates, speaking at the International Higher Education Forum in Birmingham.

He noted the “very significant increase” in MRes courses since the UK government banned all but postgraduate research students from adding dependants onto their study visas last year. MRes programs – like PhDs – are not subject to the same restrictions.

He took aim at one-year MRes programs in particular, some of which he said were “effectively unsupervised” as compared with more robust two-year MRes programs.

“There is no way that is anything other than an attempt to grow the market,” he said.

Tickell warned that the government is not blind to the obvious ways that some universities are using to get past immigration policies and stressed that the sector must clean up its act – or risk having stricter rules imposed upon it.

“We’ve been so close to a red card, and certainly a yellow card,” he said, adding: “If we don’t get our act together as a system, we’ll be in a situation where it is done to us.”

We’ve been so close to a red card and certainly a yellow card
_{^{Adam Tickell, University of Birmingham}}

The UK’s international education champion Sir Steve Smith also called for the UK sector to work cohesively and not give the government a reason to tighten the policy environment – he underlined the sector has a lot of support within government and the civil service.

“The data does indicate that there are issues,” said Smith. “We have to accept that there are issues we haven’t got right and deal with it.”

Earlier this week, The PIE News revealed that one UK university had asked agents to cut the number of MRes applicants for September 2025, requesting a “more diverse applicant profile” and requesting that agents start drawing up priority lists for CAS issuance on the MRes courses.

This appears to be linked to the university’s request to the UKVI to increase its CAS allocation with UKVI noting MRes applications should not exceed 25% of total CAS [confirmation of acceptance for studies] usage.

As the dust settles on last month’s immigration white paper, the sector is already bracing for tighter regulation around Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) thresholds by five percentage points.

Also speaking at the IHEF event was Luke Sheehy, CEO of Universities Australia, who drew parallels between the policy environment in Australia and the UK.

He observed that the Conservative party who campaigned harder on an anti-migration position “against our sector” got “wiped out” in the recent election which saw the Labor party win a historic majority.

Because of compulsory voting, there are 1.3 million Chinese voters in Australia and almost as many Indian diaspora – many of whom ended up in Australia through a higher education or skilled migration pathway.

“My optimism is that you can come through this migration debate and preserve your sector,” he said. “The good thing you have in the UK is a government that has consistently since it’s been elected sent positive signs about the value of international education.”