Student Visa Clampdown Confirmed for the UK

Monday, 29 March 2010

The new visa rules that emerged last month for the UK were unveiled Wednesday (10th February 2010) by the home secretary Alan Johnson. There were large concerns that the new proposed rule changes would impact English language schools, as it would increase the level of english required by applicants to a level that would rule out most students who come to the UK to study English.

The new rules to the “Points Based UK Visa System” was partially in response to a scam where older international female students were applying as a student to also bring in their husbands to the UK as dependents, and as such the changes are as follows:

1.     Require overseas students to have higher standards of English (the equivalent of just below GCSE),

2.     Halving the amount of time students can work each term-time week to 10 hours

3.     Banning dependents of anyone studying for less than six months.

The new changes, however, will not only affect English Language Schools as University Vice-Chancellors are also now concerned about this affect on university funding. At the moment international students are a major source of funding for universities in the UK, and these new changes, along with the suspension of visa applications in India due to a recent large surge at the tail end of last year – could see a large drop in the numbers of international students in the UK.

To read the full original article and for more information about the visa changes, please see the Guardian story.

Are you an international student trying to apply to the UK? Or are you concerned by these new regulations – post your comments below and let us know what you think!