UK universities lose £1.2bn to dip in applications from Nigerians, other int’l students

Universities in the United Kingdom that rely on international course fees have missed out on over £1.2bn in tuition fee income over the past year due to falling numbers of international students, according to analysis by the Centre for Economics and Business Research.

International students who received visas in 12 months to March 2024 paid an estimated £26.9bn in fees, a decline from £28.1bn in the previous year, the research consultancy discovered, as reported by i. Contextually, the number of sponsored study visas issued to students, including Nigerians fell by 31,000 in these 12 months to a total of 447,000, official data shows.

These declining applications have led to an unstable funding crisis that could force some of the country’s higher institutions to close, cut or merge. Experts say even Oxford and Cambridge universities are feeling the heat.

Unwelcoming policies

The financial situation has been traced to major reforms in the UK’s immigration policies first introduced last year by the Sunak-led administration, which made strict changes to the rules of stay and travel for many willing to travel into the country for various purposes.

This year, students and care workers were permanently barred from bringing over dependants, except for postgraduate students, and residents earning below £29,000 are no longer able to bring families into the UK. Additionally, the skilled worker visa salary threshold was increased by 48 percent.

“The previous Government made international students and staff feel very unwelcome, and many were forced to leave family members behind to even come to study or work here,” said Jo Grady, general secretary of the University and College Union (UCU), a British trade union in further and higher education representing over 120,000 academics and support staff in the UK.

The unemployment risk

UCU had warned that an increasing number of institutions in England could shut down unless they dramatically cut costs or merge over the next few years. About 40 percent of universities in England are expected to run budget deficits this year, which means job cuts and courses taken off the curriculum.
Every year, international students pay around £11,400 to £38,000 for undergraduate degrees, depending on the universities but unlike fees for UK nationals, fees for international students, which many universities rely on are uncapped. Domestic fees have remained at £9,250 a year since 2017.

Some universities had already released “risk of redundancy” letters to their staff with an option to voluntarily resign or apply for a limited number of roles. In February, The University of Kent proposed shaving off 58 jobs along with nine courses to tackle financial challenges.

“We have a really volatile and unstable funding model for higher education,” Gady told i. “It’s been a product of marketisation, and what it means is that universities have become much more reliant on chasing what has been increasingly ever fewer numbers of international students.”

The situation back home

Latest Home Office data showed a 15 per cent decline in international student visa applications as of July this year compared to last year. Nigeria was not an exception.

“There’s been obviously clear problems that we’ve seen where the amount of students applying from any one country can be completely dependent on what the currency in their home nation is. We’ve seen this recently with Nigeria.”

Nigeria, home to the largest population in Africa, has been a big driver of a rise in international students in recent years, according to the University of Oxford’s Migration Observatory. The youthfully populated country was the third biggest contributor of international students after India and China. Over 44,000 students from Nigeria received study visas in the year 2021/22, according to the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

But Nigeria’s currency has largely depreciated against its foreign counterparts over the past year since it welcomed new leadership.  This volatility has increased the difficulty of paying tuition fees for several Nigerians schooling overseas, which has contributed to a 49% drop in Nigerian students applying through The Universities and Colleges Admissions Service (UCAS) from 5,020 last year to 2,570 this year.

This reality could see a lot of teachers lose their jobs and universities, their financial position. “A handful of universities that are in quite serious financial trouble,” says Grady. “Labour must provide emergency funding in instances where universities are genuinely struggling, but we have to see, first and foremost, jobs protected,” she added.