Statement from HEPI Director on the migration white paper

In response, to the Government’s white paper on migration, Nick Hillman, Director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (HEPI), said:

“The idea of a levy on international students will be deeply controversial, just as it has been in Australia where a debate has been raging on this idea for months. A levy will be seen by many as a tax on a very successful UK export sector.

“There will also be concerns that some of the money raised will be siphoned off by the Treasury – just as has happened with the Apprenticeship Levy. It is easy to see why Ministers like the idea of getting better-off universities to help less well-off universities but it would take years to set up a successful levy and could come too late for some. Moreover, given the cross-subsidy from international students’ fees gets largely spent on research, there will be ramifications for spending on research and development.

“We also need to be live to the risk that a levy could encourage the Office for National Statistics to reclassify universities as part of the public sector, which would provide a major new headache to Ministers.

“Some of the other ideas on students and graduates included in the white paper are also problematic. Reducing the Graduate Route visa from two years to 18 months is, admittedly, not as bad as abolishing it. But employers who recruit international students using the Graduate Route wanted to see an increase to three or four years, rather than a reduction, as new employees take months to become productive members of the workforce.

“We are told the toughening up of the Basic Compliance Assessment imposed on higher education institutions must happen because ‘it is clear the current thresholds are too lenient’, but it is not at all clear this is the case. Finding the best match between an international applicant and an institution is a slow and difficult process – for example, an applicant might be weighing up offers from universities in more than one country. A university with a course enrolment rate of 96% is not obviously a much better institution than one with a course enrolment of 94%, whatever the Home Office might think.

“International students enrich the intellectual, financial and social aspects of university life, as HEPI has shown repeatedly over many years through a series of different projects. UK students flourish when international students flourish, so I hope the Government will listen carefully to people’s concerns in response to the white paper, just as it is also incumbent on universities to recognise the public’s concerns about recent levels of high net inward migration.”