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A British government crackdown on student visa abuse is reshaping global education pathways, leaving some aspiring students from Pakistan and Bangladesh locked out of universities in the United Kingdom.
The move comes as authorities impose stricter requirements on universities to ensure applicants are genuine students. Under new Home Office rules that took effect in September, British universities must ensure that no more than 5 percent of the student visa applications they sponsor are rejected.
But refusal rates for applicants from Pakistan and Bangladesh are far higher, standing at 18 percent and 22 percent respectively. The tightening follows growing concerns that student visas are increasingly being used as a backdoor into the UK. Government estimates show that around 16,000 people who entered Britain on student visas in 2024 later applied for asylum.
More than 80 percent of asylum seekers from Pakistan and Bangladesh are believed to have arrived on valid visas to work or study initially. The issue has become politically sensitive in Britain, prompting the Home Office to act.
Samah Rafiq, who co-lead the borders and migration research group at King’s College London, said: “There are limited ways for a genuine asylum seeker to get to the UK, and these safe and legal routes that asylum seekers had access to have systematically been decreased and diminished further through policy actions in the UK as well as in the wider EU.”
Last year, half of all rejected UK student visa applications came from just those two countries. A Home Office spokesperson told CNA that the government strongly values the contribution of international students, but said tougher measures are necessary.
(CNA)
