Matt Gass provides a conservative perspective on the foreign student controversy
Before the 2010 election the Conservatives made a pledge to cut net immigration “to tens of thousands from hundreds of thousands”. Over four years on the results have been questionable (after substantial drops the most recent figures show a significant rise in the last year). It has certainly had an effect, but not all have been desirable. One of the most damaging side effects has been the pressure on reducing foreign students coming to the UK for university. Given the inability of the Government to restrict ‘Free Movement of Peoples’ within the EU, students from outside the EU have been targeted to help edge closer to the politically important number.
The result of this is that any claims from the Home Office to have cut or limited immigration are the result of gaming the system at the expense of British interests. This reached a head earlier this week when the unlikely trio of Lord Heseltine, Nick Clegg and Chuka Umunna each called for student numbers to be removed from the overall net migration targets.
I speak from personal experience in this, having completed my undergraduate degree at Northeastern University in Boston, MA. Studying in the US benefited me greatly and allowed me to contribute more to both countries than would have been possible if I was purely a domestic student. In turn I saw the great contribution foreign students make in the UK as a law student at BPP.
From a conservative standpoint this change would be right for three main reasons.
1. Education is one of our biggest exports
Firstly, one simple fact needs to be acknowledged – foreign students are good business. The unsubsidised and often inflated fees they are willing to pay, and the tax their presence generates, results in a healthy injection to the exchequer and to the economy as a whole. £3.8bn of the estimated £10.7bn the higher education sector contributed to the economy in 2011-12 came from foreign students. This eases the burden on universities and domestic students.
Their presence while studying often leads to greater multiples down the line, as many of the most talented and committed choose to stay and continue to provide a net boost to the economy for their entire careers, setting up businesses or working in highly skilled fields where Britain needs expertise. John Major said recently that the ‘guts and the drive’ to travel halfway across the world represents “a very Conservative instinct.” We should be seeking to harness this drive, not turn it away.
2. Foreign students add value to British universities and their own countries
It is easy to see how foreign students contribute to student life in domestic universities. When able to integrate fully into campus life they give domestic students an insight into cultures they would otherwise have no way of experiencing. Experience like this is vital to success in an increasingly globalised world where on some level almost every job will be connected to another country.
Furthermore these students, upon returning to their home countries, bring with them British values of hard work and enterprise as well as a connection to the UK that is not forgotten. This effect of this is to create a commonwealth-like diaspora which it is in our interests to keep spreading.
3. Students are not the subject of immigration criticisms
This article is not the place to discuss the effect that immigration as a whole has in putting pressure on public services, worsening unemployment or putting wage pressure on domestic workers. However it is fairly clear that international students are not contributing to these effects (at least no more than domestic students are).
A distinction needs to be made here between students coming to the UK to study at a legitimate institution and bogus universities and colleges which are set up as visa factories. The Government rightly pledged to crack down on these earlier in the year. The former though should not be punished for the actions of the latter.
Furthermore the inclusion of foreign students has a distorting effect on immigration statistics overall. Students are, by definition, here for a set period of study so it is misleading to count them along with people to intend to migrate for the long term. Instead they should only be counted if, following their study, they express a desire to remain or overstay the visas granted on arrival. This would prevent the statistics from being warped by a short term rise in new arrivals (such as the one which happened this year) who have no intention to stay and instead focus on those intending to stay for the long term.
This is born out in polling numbers. 59% of the public says the government should not reduce international student numbers , even if that limits the government’s ability to cut immigration numbers overall. Only 22% take the opposing view.
With the news that net immigration rose 43% from 175,000 to 243,000 and the continued threat of UKIP, which has benefited in the polls from taking an anti-immigration stance, the Government will feel under pressure to seek to achieve its symbolically important target by any means necessary. This pressure should be resisted and the way we measure and compare different types of immigration should be re-evaluated.
Matt Gass is a former Director of Parliament Street
