Blog #6: Immigration Policies Deter Foreign Students from Studying in the UK, Warns Report

Recently the UK has been cracking down on immigration, changing laws to help deter the UK as an immigration destination. However, in recent reports, some say that this is resulting in a “clampdown” on international students, causing the UK’s share in international markets to go down by 1%, causing international students to choose other places to study abroad, rather than the UK. The UK has established a system of post-study work visas, which allows foreign students to find work while they are studying abroad and recent reports suggest that removing the program would have devastating effects on the UK’s ability to attract foreign students. They also suggest that the UK’s immigration policies need to be set up in a way that they can separate the long-term immigrants from foreign students, making sure that study abroad applicants are not affected by their policies.
Unfortunately, because of the UK’s immigration policies and the consideration of changing foreign student visas, this is causing many foreign students to worry and put them off studying in the UK. Over 70k jobs are created in the UK from foreign students, yet by trying to control migration with policies that prevent economic growth as well as attracting new talented students is causing the UK, who is also experiencing many economic challenges just like most of the world, to decline in the world market and threaten their reputation of quality universities and high standards.
Foreign students help international economies in many ways by creating jobs, building reputation, and reeling in income for the country’s development. Immigration is a known problem everywhere, causing many nationals to be angry and laws to get changed in many countries as today’s world economy is declining. However, education and laborers are the most important aspects that keep our economies in tact, keeping it from fully collapsing. If education were to be prevented,as well as immigration, then that could cause major economic issues and possibly cause a country’s economic growth to come to a stand still.   
This is even more dangerous for the UK as they appear to be sending more of their own students abroad than they are actually bringing in, causing a deficit in the amount of students being educated in the UK. Allowing immigrants to migrate to the UK and become educated is the best possible thing the UK could do in this time of economic crisis. On the contrary, the UK is trying to prevent immigrants from coming in, pushing current immigrants out, and deterring them from being educated. The UK states that they are cracking down on immigration to help promote “public confidence”, but this is starting to sound more like an ethnic and cultural issue rather than just promoting confidence and patriotism. It is hard to see any pros in this situation, considering the attitude of the UK and the immigration laws being put in place. Education creates jobs and immigration provides laborers to fill these jobs. Preventing the immigration cycle will not only cause the UK to seem a little empty, but their economic crisis could become a lot more severe. 


http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2012/02/23/immigration-policies-deter-students_n_1295940.html