26 April 2011

Subject: Proposed Student Visa Changes

To: Mr Stephen Gilbert MP
From: Mr Daniel Kroop, LSE Students’ Union Postgraduate Officer
CC: Mr Michael Lok, International Officer; Ms Charlotte Gerada, General Secretary

Dear Mr Gilbert

Thank you for the productive meeting this afternoon. The purpose of this memo is to
provide you with written documentation of the outstanding problems students identify
in the Government’s proposed immigration and student visa changes.

I represent perhaps the UK’s most international research university student body: 80%
of postgraduate students at the LSE are from outside Britain. As an LSE alumnus
yourself, I know you understand that the proposed immigration policy poses a
tremendous threat to the character and quality of education at the globally-renowned
LSE.

Moving forward, I would be delighted to draft a joint letter with you for a meeting
with Tom Brake MP, Co-Chair of the Committee on Home Affairs, Justice and
Equalities. That meeting is still to be scheduled.

1. Policy disincentives abound to detract high-quality international students

If the details of the immigration bill are parsed, it becomes clear the proposed changes
will put off international students from applying and attending British universities.

A. The end of Post-Study Work visas has a universal negative effect on the UK’s
appeal
Losing PSW will have an enormous effect. Instead of providing a promise to students
who earn their degree that they will be able to work in the UK, the promise is
substituted with a risk: namely, if you come to the UK to study and earn your degree,
you’ll need a £24,000 job lined up before you’re done. Even then, you’ll only get to
stay a year—if you want more time, the job must pay an unheard-of for early
professionals £40,000. LSE has gathered substantial evidence that students may
simply no longer apply, and not only from countries where the British exchange rate
coupled with international tuition fees is especially onerous.

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Without the two-year unrestricted post-study work guarantee, the risk of attending
university in the UK is much greater than anticipated gains. Hardly any jobs offer the
income jump required to stay after just one year. A one-year of professional
experience in the UK is neither enough to make a significant imprint on a CV nor
repay the cost of tuition, frequently in the range of £30,000 total.

B. 5-year study limit restricts ‘the best and the brightest’

The 5-year study limit at sub-doctoral level is poorly conceived and will push away
some of ‘the best and the brightest’ the policy aims to retain. To provide just two
examples: (1) Students who study foreign language stay on their undergraduate course
for 4 years, and often desire 2-year masters’ degrees. These students—whose capacity
for global diplomacy and trade is enhanced by their multilingualism—will not be able
to follow their desired sub-doctoral (perhaps leading to doctoral) courses in the UK.
(2) Architecture, medicine, and other degrees take upwards of 7 years. These students
would also be incentivised to look elsewhere for their programme.

C. Cutting off undergraduate dependents cuts off cultures

The practice of some religions, including Islam, necessitates travel with family
members or spouses. The proposal to cut the undergraduate dependent route is
nothing short of a clear and xenophobic warning shot to students who may very well
excel in studies but practice a different faith. For even non-religious mature students,
the inability to bring a spouse or child for an undergraduate degree would surely be
considered a deal-breaker. Lastly, human rights legislation at the International and EU
levels on the right to family life may mean there is little unchallenged room for free
manoeuvre in this category. Judicial challenges would be expensive for the
government.

D. No transparent standard has been used to determine the high/low risk categories
The Government has already put in place a formal high/low risk bifurcation for
countries. The UKBA is to consider this when scrutinizing visa applications.
Objectively, this is discrimination, so the question remains: How will this list of
countries be generated, and on what quantitative evidence is it based? And most
importantly, it is going to solve the problem of visa abuse, or merely delay visas,
frustrate both bureaucrats and applicants, and encourage prospective students to select
a school under more liberal immigration regimes, like Australia or Ireland?

2. Negative net economic effect

In a Martin Rosenbaum BBC article of 14 April, it is disclosed that the Treasury—
alongside free-market think tank Adam Smith—is dour on the effects of immigration
cuts on the economy. The Treasury’s “broad argument is that cutting immigration of
skilled workers would reduce the UK economy’s potential for growth. It also states
that migrants tend to make a positive contribution long-term to the UK’s fiscal
position.”

Students currently contribute around £8 billion to the UK economy. That figure does
not include the economic gains from students on a Post-Study Work visa, for which
estimates are difficult to come by but logic would dictate is somewhere in the
hundreds of millions to low billions of pounds in stimulus, plus taxes. If no argument

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from Section 1 on the impact of this proposal passing seems compelling, let it be this:
The UK will be perceived as anti-student migrant, and the result will be a weaker UK
economy.

Despite a gloomy speech from the Prime Minister on 14 April, qualified students do
not come for a ‘free ride’. (That erroneous metaphor came from Mr Cameron’s
misinterpretation of an airline’s free-flight advertisement while touring a British
educational fair in India.)

To the contrary, students compete globally for scholarships, university places, and
jobs afterward. Many do get jobs immediately afterward, though certainly not often
with the possibility for £40,000 within a year. They pay high taxes and create new
links for UK firms around the globe. This soft power helps grow the economy and
direct investment to the United Kingdom, as opposed to other English-speaking
nations.

A different way of looking at the problem comes from the academic world of
economics. The UK, unlike most continental European counterparts, functions under
liberal market capitalism. By closing off its internal market to migrants who not just
shore up service sectors but also college students and graduates who fill professional
roles (often quite low-paid), the UK is actively undermining its own neoliberal model.
This is all to say nothing of the reality of ‘soft power’, from which Britain yields
untold benefits as seeming accessible to ambitious, smart young people from across
the world.

The negative publicity generated by the immigration debate is already affecting

student recruitment. LSE has collected data showing that Indian and Chinese students
—financiers, engineers, and workers Britain needs for economic success—are
discouraging younger peers from applying because of the withdrawal of the Post-
Study Work visa route. Students may go to Australia, Ireland, Canada, or the United
States; or they may simply find a university elsewhere among rapidly improving local
options.

3. Lack of consideration for Liberal Democrats’ views

The proposal at hand does not address the real challenge: Cracking down on bogus
institutions that offer fake degrees in exchange for high fees and a student visa. It is,
to the contrary, a blunt political instrument of the powerful anti-immigration wing of
the Conservative Party.

Nicholas Watt’s Guardian piece of 14 April 2011 quotes a Liberal Democrat source as
saying that “Nick [Clegg] and Vince [Cable] are very proud to have worked hard to
get the policies where they are. The Tories wanted a student migration cap. That has
not happened.”

Yet the reality is that if these restrictions are imposed, they will create the same effect
—many fewer students coming to the UK. What matter is a ‘cap’ or not if the plan
will dramatically cut students? Those students who do come will be more likely to
exclusively pursue high-income careers like banking, or come from means that
support the high international fees and limited acceptable work opportunities

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available under the new regime.

The stated Conservative goal is to “reduce immigration to the tens of thousands.” The
Liberal Democrats favour an earned amnesty for illegal migrants who have lived in
the UK for a decade. The manifestos of the parties—independent of each other—on
the role of migrants in British society are clearly distant. The proposal on the table
strikes a balance that, I hope to have shown, is far afield of Liberal Democrats’ views.

Despite the understood arrangement of Coalition, the immigration policy is surely a

bridge too far. The result of the policy will be a Conservative one, but it is asking for
Liberal Democrats’ votes to pass. It actively undermines an understanding of Britain
as a nexus of high-quality education and a country dedicated to maintaining a global
footprint.

Out of respect for your own party’s supposedly immutable values—free and
successful markets that build a globally respected Britain—I would urge you and your
Liberal Democrat colleagues to vote against the proposal at hand.

Thank you for reading. I look forward to your response and working together to create
a smarter student visa policy.

Daniel Kroop
su.postgrad@lse.ac.uk
0778864 7252