Visa rules deter international students – Coventry University boss

Coventry University’s vice-chancellor has said the city’s economy could lose tens of millions of pounds due to a government clampdown on international student visas.

In January, the government introduced restrictions to prevent most international students from bringing dependents with them.

Prof John Latham said the rules, along with political rhetoric, were discouraging students from coming to the UK.

The Home Office has been contacted for comment.

In introducing the new rules at the start of the year, the department said it also wanted to prevent student visas from being a “back route into work in the UK”.

It has asked a committee to review the visa changes, and a report is expected to be released on Tuesday.

Coventry University said international students were worth more than £150m to the city and blamed politicians for a 40% year-on-year drop in international student recruitment at English universities during January.

Professor Latham said it had an “enormous impact” on the university’s finances and the wider economy.

“The government is causing significant economic damage to communities like Coventry for the sake of chasing a few wrong headlines,” he said.

“There is a perception that international students are a burden on the economy, but the opposite is true because they spend money here and don’t use many public services.”

He said the university was a major employer in the area and supported many more jobs either directly or indirectly, adding that international students spent “a lot of money in the city”.

According to the Migration Observatory, in 2021-22 the university had one of the highest numbers of international students on the list – 9,845 -, with only University College London and the University of Edinburgh attracting more.

Prof Latham said the higher fees paid by international students helped support the education of UK students.

He added that the university had cash reserves that allowed it to adapt, but that it needed to accelerate its move to overseas teaching.

It already has branches and campuses in Egypt, Morocco and China and is negotiating future campuses in Kazakhstan and India.

When the changes were announced last year, then Home Secretary Suella Braverman said they struck the “right balance” between reducing migration and “protecting the economic benefits that students can bring to the UK”.

There were 135,788 visas granted to dependents in 2022, up from 54,486 in 2021 and more than seven times the 19,139 granted in 2020.