This HEPI blog was kindly authored by Meti Basiri, Co-founder and CEO at ApplyBoard.
The UK Home Office released its latest international education data in August and, as expected, the number of sponsored study visas issued to main applicants continued to decline through June. This follows an ongoing trend since the UK’s previous government announced restrictions on dependants. But while demand overall is down, several emerging student populations are bucking this developing trend.
Study visas to the UK drop by 13% for the year ending June 2024
The UK issued over 432,000 sponsored study visas to main applicant international students for the year ending June 2024. This represents a 13% decline from the previous year:
It’s important to contextualize that the year-over-year drop for the year ending June 2024 is likely the tip of the iceberg. That’s because the bulk of sponsored study visas are issued during Q3. For each of the calendar years 2021 through 2023, over 65% of all study visas were issued from July through September. As such, the autumn data release will allow us to better measure the full impact of the dependants policy change.
However, we can start to understand the effect this policy change has had by comparing the first half of the 2024 calendar year with the year ending in June data. For the months of January through June, the UK issued over 82,000 sponsored study visas to main applicants in 2024. This was 23% fewer than that same period in 2023.
Increased study visa refusals do not account for the overall dip
The number of study visa refusals doubled for the year ending June 2024 compared to the same period in 2023.[1] However, refusal rates remained low, with only 4% of main applicants refusing a sponsored study visa for the year ending June 2024.
Refusals, then, played only a minimal role in the overall dip in student visas issued in 2024. Indeed, the number of processed applications for sponsored study main applicants in the year ending June 2024 dropped by 11% over 2023. For January through June 2024, there was a 19% decline over the same period of the previous year.
There’s also been a tremendous spike in withdrawn applications since the dependants policy announcement, further highlighting how the UK is experiencing a demand decline rather than a quality decline. Over 6,000 main applicants withdrew their sponsored study visa application in the year ending June 2024, an increase of 279% over the same period in 2023. For January through June, the year-over-year increase in 2024 was a startling 748%.
Which international student populations declined the most for the UK in 2024?
Over 110 student populations were issued fewer sponsored study permits for main applicants in the year ending June 2024 compared to the previous year. The bulk of these reductions were from countries sending under 50 students to the UK, but many of the UK’s largest student populations also receded:
The Nigerian and Bangladeshi student populations are the most at risk for the UK. Sponsored study visas for both student populations dropped by over 44% for the year ending June 2024.
And the diminished demand grows more pronounced when we look at just the first half of the calendar year. From January through June 2024, the number of study visas issued to Nigerian students declined by nearly 70% over the same period in 2023. Issuances to Bangladeshi students dropped by 56% over this time frame.
Last summer, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, and Ghana all had a dependant to main applicant ratio higher than 0.5:1, meaning their study visa applications would be most likely to decline. India’s sheer number of dependant applicants made it a candidate to see impactful visa declines as well.[2] As these five countries accounted for some of the largest percentage drops during the first half of the 2024 calendar year, this prediction is proving to be unfortunately accurate.
While the policy change affecting student dependants has certainly been a key driver for many of these declines, it’s worth noting that economic factors like currency fluctuations or declining GDP in a student’s country of origin also contribute to reduced demand.
These international student populations are showing increased demand for a UK study visa
The change in demand is stark, and it would be easy to paint a picture that was only dire in response. However, in contrast to the broader negative trends, there are several student populations in which demand for a UK study visa has never been higher:
Pakistan and Nepal are the two countries leading demand growth for a UK-sponsored study visa. Nearly 34,000 Pakistani students were issued a study visa for the year ending in June 2024, meaning Pakistan surpassed Nigeria to become the UK’s third largest source of students. And impressively, Pakistan’s growth rate was even higher from January to June 2024 (+32%) than it was for the year ending June (+17%).
ApplyBoard recommends institutions focus on expanding recruitment in student populations that grew in both the year ending June and the first half of the calendar year. That’s because study visa numbers for a few of the fastest-growing countries in the former period actually declined during the latter, such as Afghanistan (down 55%) and Turkey (down 22%), illustrating that these student populations are more in flux than those showing improvements over both time frames.
The Graduate Route looks here to stay
In addition to the student populations defying the overall trend, there’s another reason for optimism: International students can once again be confident in the Graduate Route.
At the start of the year, it was uncertain whether the previous government would continue to support the 2-year Graduate Route visa. But in May, the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) recommended retaining the Graduate Route in its current form, which mostly put those concerns to rest. And now the new Labour government has stated their intention to maintain the Graduate Route.
ApplyBoard’s Pulse Surveys routinely show that post-graduation work opportunities are a top priority in an international student’s decision-making process. And while restoring student confidence about Graduate Route availability won’t completely offset the loss of demand from the dependency policy changes, it should help slow the decline.
[1] The year ending June 2024 saw 16,600 refusals, an increase of 161% over the same period 2023. For just January to June 2024, there were 5,700 refusals, an increase of 129% over the same period 2023.
[2] It’s worth noting that declining Indian demand in the UK follows trends in other major Anglophone destinations as well, such as applications trending downward in Canada since May 2023, and visa issuances dropping 16% in the first half of the US’s 2024 fiscal year.