The government needs to think again on student immigration

A balancing act has been going on throughout the Coalition’s time in power. How best to appeasing the general public’s marked hostility towards immigration, without losing the benefits immigration brings to the UK? The government’s current strategy has gotten this balancing act badly wrong, by including international students in immigration figures. These numbers are easy to legislate to reduce, and so are an easy way to make it look as though net immigration is going down. But this gets rid of the exact kind of immigrants (soon to be well educated, and with money to spend) that the country desperately needs to help us out of economic turmoil.  Now, the chairmen of five parliamentary committees have written to David Cameron urging him to reconsider his current policy.

This is yet another example of how this country’s immigration policy continues to inflict damage upon itself to such a degree as to border on self-mutilation. The government’s current policy is designed to stop ‘them there foreigners’ coming over here, enriching our culture and fuelling our economy. By including overseas students in their net migration goals (which the coalition pledges to reduce) the government is placing an unnecessary restriction on the number of foreign students that can come to the UK.

Education remains one of Britain’s leading industries, with a glowing international reputation, a source of numerous jobs across all sections of society and a generator of both the vital skills needed to run an industrialised country and strong international economic ties. These restrictions, coupled with the current economic climate, ultimately serves to deter potential students from coming to the UK. This has an overall negative effect on the British economy and university system. The effects of this deterrence are plainly evident. Over the past year, the numbers of overseas students coming to the UK has sharply declined.

The home office has defended the current rules, as part of an attempt to stamp out ‘bogus students’ and prevent abuse of the immigration system. But this is just the same story that we have been told a thousand times before. Amongst the huddled and destitute masses fleeing persecution and violence, there may be a few that just want to come along for the easy jobs. Among the thousands of hard working men and women who leave their families and friends behind in order to travel half way across the world to work an awful job, for awful pay, with awful hours, there are a few who just want to leech of our bountiful and generous welfare state. Among the thousands of foreign nationals coming to study in our world class universities, there could be a few that are sneaking in uninvited.

The Government’s current policy is effectively saying that we need to guard against these pretend students, by whatever means necessary. We of course don’t want to alienate the legitimate migrants, oh no. But if a few refugees are sent back to warzones or a few boatloads of migrants sink in the ocean, then that is just the price that we have to pay.

The fear of a few potential free riders in the system drives our governments to enact increasingly restrictive and damaging measures. More often than not, all that these restrictions do is increase the number of people who can be classed as illegal, thus driving up the demand for further restrictions. As more channels of entry come under scrutiny, it drives illegal migrants to use other means of entry. This leads to more widespread surveillance and restriction in these areas. This is of course to say nothing of the phenomenal cost of maintaining such scrutiny.

Why should we, as students, care about this relatively tiny aspect of a much larger problem? Well there are a number of reasons I can think of off the top of my head. Firstly, diversity on campus. Part of the reason we go to university is to have the opportunity to meet people from all over the world. Secondly, you might want to consider the role that international students play in funding our universities, especially when you consider the negative effects the cuts have made to native enrolment rates. Such funds are sorely needed in these trying times. For example, just imagine what university life would be like without such vital public goods as the Learning Commons (But seriously, jokes aside, our universities could not survive without this money.)

And finally, there are economic factors to consider. As mentioned, the universities play a significant role in the national economy, and a healthy rate of student migration is vital for maintaining the international ties that help to fuel innovation and the integration of the global economy in such a manner as benefits us all. David Cameron got it wrong, let’s all hope he listens.