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Governing logic

In May 2025, the UK government published an immigration , titled Restoring Control Over the Immigration System, which advocated tighter controls on movement and settlement in the UK in order to . In the document, the prime minister claimed that at the heart of Britain’s immigration strategy is a ‘simple message of fairness’ – a message that is neither simple nor convincingly grounded in fairness (Humphries, 2002). Historically, appeals to fairness within Britain’s immigration governance have coexisted with a rhetoric of threat, suspicion and risk management, going back to the . In the context of international students, administrative and fiscal regulation was institutionalised in 1967 through the introduction of between home and overseas students. This blog post examines how higher education functions as a site of immigration control by governing international students through mechanisms of compliance with immigration rules and regulations.

Against increasingly polarising national debates, international students have once again been drawn into the management of net migration figures, as the policy pendulum has swung from a welcoming stance towards more restrictive approaches to academic mobility. As such, international students now sit uneasily outside the dominant frameworks of educational equality and social justice. Policy discourse repeatedly distinguishes between ‘the best and the brightest’ and those labelled as ‘bogus’ students who are deemed responsible for sustaining low-quality higher education providers (Brooks, 2017). Such distinctions reproduce enduring reservations about deservingness, specifically who is entitled to a British degree and policies designed to exclude those constructed as ‘sham’ students (Brooks, 2017).

Universities as immigration actors

Relatedly, questions arise as to how non-state actors, particularly universities, have become sites of surveillance and spaces where immigration regulations unfold. On the one hand, the central role of the international higher education system is to expand scholarship, facilitate research collaboration and enable global circulation of knowledge through free academic mobility. On the other hand, universities are required to operate as immigration actors, monitoring and enforcing compliance with visa regulations. This impels institutions to balance fiscal incentives against commitments to student welfare, equality, equity and internationalisation (Tiernan, 2024).

‘Universities are required to operate as immigration actors [which] impels institutions to balance fiscal incentives against commitments to student welfare, equality, equity and internationalisation.’

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Recent policy recommendations have radically argued that universities should be , with growing concerns that student visas are being used as a backdoor route into the UK labour market. Proposals also include a 6 per cent levy on international fees. The predominance of economic framings of international students is itself revealing, as it is precisely the logic of the market that renders declining numbers consequential for university finances as well as intensifying regulatory pressures on academic provisions. In 2021/22 international students generated £41.9 billion for the . International tuition fees accounted for 23 per cent of for British universities in 2023/2024, highlighting the UK higher education sector’s growing financial reliance on international student mobility.

A by the Russell Group noted that income from international students accounts for between one-third and one-fifth of total revenue at most Russell Group universities. However, this income stream has become increasingly precarious amid declining visa applications. Previous by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) in 2018 noted that the fee income from international students cross-subsidised both research activities and domestic teaching. Declining international student numbers would compel universities to reallocate funding away from research, domestic teaching and widening participation initiatives for home students.

A recent of 60 universities conducted by Universities UK (UUK) indicates that the majority of universities are implementing operational cutbacks, staff redundancies and course closures in response to declining numbers following changes to visa regimes. This financial crisis is pervasive across the UK higher education sector with over cuts reported in 2025. from Office for Students (OfS) indicate that without mitigating actions, around 45 per cent of higher education providers in the UK could operate at a deficit in 2025/2026.

Looking ahead

As immigration has become an explosive and divisive ideological issue, political imaginaries are saturated with the spectre of the ‘sham’ international students unfairly jumping UK university queues and crowding out domestic students. Against this backdrop, there is a pressing need for more critical, reflexive and inclusive approaches in both government policies and higher education practices that embrace commitments to educational equality and equity for both domestic and international students alike (Tannock, 2013). Short-sighted pledges to restrict international student mobility further entrench bordering practices within universities, undermining their fundamental role in producing knowledge that transcends national boundaries and their responsibilities to the global common good and global justice.

References

Brooks, R. (2018). The construction of higher education students in English policy documents. British Journal of Sociology of Education, 39(6), 745–761.

Humphries, E. (2002). Fair immigration controls – or none at all? In S. Cohen, B. Humphries, & E. Mynott (Eds.), From immigration controls to welfare control (pp. 203–219). Routledge.

Tannock, S. (2013). When the demand for educational equality stops at the border: Wealthy students, international students and the restructuring of higher education in the UK. Journal of Education Policy, 28(4), 449–464.

Tiernan, A. (2024). Higher education spaces as immigration sites: A critical examination. In A. Curaj, C. M. Hâj, & R. Pricopie (Eds.), European higher education area 2030: Bridging realities for tomorrow’s higher education (pp. 161–177). Springer.