Int’l Student Visa Applications to UK Down 16% This Year

United Kingdom Europe International Studies Higher Education News by Erudera News Oct 15, 2024

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UK authorities have reported a drop in the number of international student visa applications this year, new data shows.

Home Office has recently published figures showing there were 350,700 applicants for Sponsored Study visas between January and September this year, a 16 percent drop from the same timeframe last year.

Data revealed some 49,000 fewer applications were submitted in three months, specifically from July to September 2024, or 16 percent drop compared to the same months last year, Erudera.com reports.

“The number of monthly applications typically peak between July and September before the start of the academic year. Between July and September 2024, there were 49,000 (16 percent) fewer applications, from main applicants, compared to the same 3 months in 2023,” Home Office said in a statement.

Following the UK’s rules on international students bringing family members to the country, the number of students’ dependents also dropped between January and September this year, 85 percent fewer than the same period last year.

Since January, international students in the UK have been banned from bringing their dependents to the country, excluding those in research-based courses or government-sponsored scholarships. The change came as part of efforts to reduce migration and end abuse of the immigration system.

“There were 17,800 applications from dependants of students between January and September 2024, 85 percent fewer than January to September 2023. This followed the rule changes that came into effect in January 2024 which prevent students from bringing dependants, apart from those studying postgraduate research courses or courses with government-funded scholarships,” the Home Office explains.

Between July and September this year, there were 263,400 sponsored study visa applications, down from 312,500 in the summer of last year. Dependent applications stood at 6,700 during the same period, a decrease from a total of 59,900 applications made last year.

According to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), 758,855 international students went to study in the UK last academic year, hitting a new record. The majority of students hailed from India, China, and Nigeria.

Chinese students accounted for the largest number of international students in the UK for over a decade, but the number of new entrants dropped in 2020/21 to increase again to 102,800 in 2022/23.

Data showed that of all the students, 95,505 were from the EU and 663,355 from outside the EU. The last record peak happened in 2021/22, when 675,200 international students studied in the UK.

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