Visa fee rises to damage overseas recruitment
A government decision to raise visa fees for international students will potentially endanger the economic viability of York’s £500 million expansion project.
The fee rises, implemented without consultation with the higher education sector, have been strongly criticised by vice-chancellors, who say they compromise the efforts of UK universities to attract overseas students.
As reported by Nouse last month, the University will specifically targeted overseas students to fill the Heslington East expansion following a government cap on home student numbers.
The Home Office has increased the fee for applying for a visa to study in the UK in 2009-10 from £99 to £145. Fees for extensions made in person will rise from £500 to £565.
Diana Warwick, chief executive of vice-chancellors’ umbrella group Universities UK, said: “The increase in fees will come at the same time as a number of other changes in the UK’s immigration system and the UK government is in serious danger of sending out a message that it does not welcome international students.
An increase in immigration fees would work against plans to recruit overseas students in a “highly competitive environment”, Warwick added.
In response, University Press Officer David Garner stated: “These proposals represent a potential increased cost to international students (and staff) and they will make the task of recruitment more challenging in what is already a highly competitive market.”
“It is too soon to assess its effect on recruitment in relation to University expansion,” he added.
In attracting overseas students, UK universities already face competition from the USA and Australia, where the academic year begins in February, making an application easy for students who initially applied to a course in York in October, but encountered visa difficulties.
Paul Marshall, executive director of the 1994 group, of which York is a member, told The Guardian: “International student recruitment is so delicate that something as small as changing the price of the visa application fee can have a large effect on applications.”
“It’s one of the things that potentially puts people off coming here – it gives the wrong message,” he added.
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If you can afford to pay about £10,000 a year as international student’s fees I doubt that £50 will really be a problem.