Foreign students should be made to pay an upfront £10,000 surety to prevent them claiming asylum, a think tank has urged.

Policy Exchange said there was increasing evidence that overseas students were using their study visa as a back door to long-term work or settlement in the UK, including through claiming asylum.

Home Office figures showed that 16,000 of those who claimed asylum in 2024 had arrived in the UK on a student visa, nearly one in six (15 per cent) of all asylum claims, according to the think tank’s report.

It suggested that foreign students could be required to provide a £10,000 surety that they would comply with the conditions of their visa and leave on completion of their studies.

The report said the aim would be to prevent over-staying and abuse of student working rights. The deposit would be forfeited if they breached the terms of their visa or if they made an asylum claim which was denied.

Prospective international students could also be required to undertake a commitment not to seek asylum whilst in the UK on a student visa. This would enable the Government to make the case that they have entered on a false promise in violation of immigration law if they then did so.

In a foreword to the report, author David Goodhart said the university sector had become a “backdoor for unprecedented levels of migration that is neither beneficial, short term nor controlled”.

“What must cease is the marketing of our universities as a backdoor to long-term migration. The failure to address this has meant we have welcomed far too many who have been incentivised to come here for the wrong reasons,” he said.

“Restoring control to the international student regime would serve as a vital first step to addressing popular disillusionment with both the UK’s immigration system and its higher education sector.”

Research by Policy Exchange found 43 per cent of all non-travel visas last year were issued to international students and their dependents – with those using the graduate route increasingly studying short postgraduate taught courses at low ranked universities.

Of those arriving on student visas, 40 per cent transferred to a different visa within 12 months in 2023 – up from just three per cent in 2019. The number of individuals transferring directly from study visas to health and care worker visas rose by 560 per cent between 2022 and 2023.

Warning system

The report recommended that the graduate visa route should be ended for all students other than those on postgraduate research degrees. It said the English standards required for incoming students should be raised.

Students from European Union member states should not be granted access to domestic fee rates or the student loan book, it said. And universities should be required to collect new data on the work undertaken by international students and their impact on the student experiences of domestic students.

Labour’s white paper proposed limiting the graduate visa from two years to 18 months and consideration of a six per cent “levy” on the £12 billion-a-year fee income that universities generate from overseas students.

It said the money would be reinvested in the “higher education and skills system” as part of proposals to boost training of domestic workers to reduce reliance on foreign staff.

To prevent the misuse of student visas, universities will now be required to ensure at least 90 per cent of foreign students complete their courses and at least 95 per cent turn up for them. A new red-amber-green warning system will tell the public how universities are performing in achieving compliance.

Universities “close to failing on their metrics” will have to draw up an action plan and face limits on the number of new foreign students they can recruit.