New IRCC data has revealed plummeting international student arrivals from January to August this year, with stakeholders bracing for further declines as the government pushes forward with efforts to reduce temporary residents in Canada.
“The international education sector is rightly concerned that study permit approvals are far below the caps, but the news release makes clear that those concerns are not shared by the Carney government,” Regulated Canadian Immigration Consultant (RCIC) Matthew McDonald told The PIE News.
The figures showed less than 90,000 new international students entered Canada from January to August 2025, making it highly unlikely that Canada will meet its goal of issuing 437,000 study permits this year, as announced in January 2025.
While international student arrivals have fallen by 60%, the government has painted the figures as a “story of success” in reducing Canada’s temporary resident population, said McDonald.
Taken together, the number of work permit holders and study permit holders decreased by 22% from August 2024 to 2025 – a trend that the IRCC said was “a clear sign the measures we’ve put in place are working”.
The drop has brought the total number of study permit holders (including those who hold a work and study permit at the same time) down to 802,425 – 21% less than in 2024 and the lowest level since 2021 during the pandemic.
It sets Canada on track to drastically miss the government’s target of issuing a total of 437,000 study permits this year, which was a 10% reduction of the original 2024 cap.
Given the expected shortfall, stakeholders are calling for greater transparency about IRCC’s objectives, highlighting the detrimental impact of the decline on institutions whose budgets were largely guided by the 10% cap.
The TR data release is a weather balloon … to see if the Canadian public accepts the message that immigration is now under control in Canada
Matthew McDonald, RCIC
The timing of the release less than two weeks ahead of the 2025-2027 Immigration Levels plan has not gone unnoticed by commentators, who are expecting an update to align with the incoming 2025 budget and the shifting vision of Canada’s long-standing openness to immigration.
“The temporary resident (TR) data release is a weather balloon, alongside updated processing times, to see if the Canadian public accepts the message that immigration is now under control in Canada,” said McDonald.
“The Carney government is concerned about the floor, not the ceiling—i.e., about wrestling down the TR population below 5%,” he added.
Currently, the government aims to reach the 5% goal by the end of 2027, with Carney acknowledging it will take several years to reduce TR levels by restricting those coming in and transitioning more temporary residents to permanent residency.
Notwithstanding any surprises in the upcoming budget and Immigration Levels Plan, McDonald said he expected the government to “hold their foot” on new study and work permit approvals for several years to come.
Ahead of the federal budget announcement, the Canadian Bureau for International Education (CBIE) is urging the government to launch a renewed International Education Strategy to “restore Canada’s global brand to bolster its foreign policy and trade relationships”.
The body highlighted the economic contributions of international students who contributed nearly CA$40bn to the country in 2022, boosting local communities and filing labour shortages.
What’s more, CBIE emphasised the cultural perspectives international students bring to Canada’s campuses and their importance to the country’s soft power, with students who leave becoming ambassadors for Canada in their home countries.
In SRHE News and Blog a series of posts is chronicling, decade by decade, the progress of SRHE since its foundation 60 years ago in 1965. As always, our memories are supported by some music of the times.
So here we are, with many people taking stock of where HE had got to in 2005 – suddenly I see. Evan Schofer (Minnesota) and John W Meyer (Stanford) looked at the worldwide expansion of HE in the twentieth century in the American Sociological Review, noting that: “An older vision of education as contributing to a more closed society and occupational system—with associated fears of “over-education”—was replaced by an open-system picture of education as useful “human capital” for unlimited progress. … currently about one-fifth of the world cohort is now enrolled in higher education.”
Mark Olssen (Surrey) and Michael A Peters (Surrey) wrote about “a fundamental shift in the way universities and other institutions of higher education have defined and justified their institutional existence” as different governments sought to apply some pressure. Their 2005 article in the Journal of Educational Policy traced“… the links between neoliberalism and globalization on the one hand, and neoliberalism and the knowledge economy on the other. … Universities are seen as a key driver in the knowledge economy and as a consequence higher education institutions have been encouraged to develop links with industry and business in a series of new venture partnerships.”
Åse Gornitzka (Oslo), Maurice Kogan (Brunel) and Alberto Amaral (Porto) edited Reform and Change in Higher Education: Analysing Policy Implementation, also taking a long view of events since the publication 40 years earlier of Great Expectations and Mixed Performance: The Implementation of Higher Education Reforms in Europe by Ladislav Cerych and Paul Sabatier. The 2005 book provided a review and critical appraisal of current empirical policy research in higher education with Kogan on his home territory writing the first chapter, ‘The Implementation Game’. At the same time another giant of HE research, SRHE Fellow Michael Shattock, was equally at home editing a special issue of Higher Education Management and Policyon the theme of ‘Entrepreneurialism and the Knowledge Society’. That journal had first seen the light of day in 1977, being a creation of the OECD programme on Institutional Management in Higher Education, a major supporter of and outlet for research into HE in those earlier decades. The special issue included articles by SRHE Fellows Ron Barnett and Gareth Williams, and by Steve Fuller (Warwick), who would be a keynote speaker at the SRHE Research Conference in 2006. The journal’s Editorial Advisory Group was a beautiful parade of leading researchers into HE, including among others Elaine El-Khawas, (George Washington University, Chair), Philip Altbach (Boston College, US), Chris Duke (RMIT University, Australia), Leo Goedegebuure (Twente), Ellen Hazelkorn (Dublin Institute of Technology), Lynn Meek (University of New England, Australia), Robin Middlehurst (Surrey), Christine Musselin (Centre de Sociologie des Organisations (CNRS), France), Sheila Slaughter (Arizona) and Ulrich Teichler (Gesamthochschule Kassel, Germany).
I’ve got another confession to make – Shattock had been writing about entrepreneurialism as ‘an idea for its time’ for more than 15 years, paying due homage to Burton Clark. The ‘entrepreneurial university’ was indeed a term “susceptible to processes of semantic appropriation to suit particular agendas”, as Gerlinde Mautner (Vienna) wrote in Critical Discourse Studies. It was a concept that seemed to break through to the mainstream in 2005 – witness, a survey by The Economist, ‘The Brains Business’ which said: “America’s system of higher education is the best in the world. That is because there is no system … Europe hopes to become the world’s pre-eminent knowledge-based economy. Not likely … For students, higher education is becoming a borderless world … Universities have become much more businesslike, but they are still doing the same old things … A more market-oriented system of higher education can do much better than the state-dominated model”. You could have it so much better, said The Economist.
An article by Simon Marginson (then Melbourne, now Oxford via UCL), ‘Higher Education in the Global Economy’, noted that “… a new wave of Asian science powers is emerging in China (including Hong Kong and Taiwan), Singapore and Korea. In China, between 1995 and 2005 the number of scientific papers produced each year multiplied by 4.6 times. In South Korea … 3.6 times, in Singapore 3.2. … Between 1998 and 2005 the total number of graduates from tertiary education in China increased from 830,000 to 3,068,000 ….” (and Coldplay sang China all lit up). Ka Ho Mok (then Hang Seng University, Hong Kong) wrote about how Hong Kong institutional strategies aimed to foster entrepreneurship. Private education was booming, as Philip Altbach (Boston College) and Daniel C Levy (New York, Albany) showed in their edited collection, Private Higher Education: a Global Revolution. Diane Reay (Cambridge), Miriam E David and Stephen J Ball (both IoE/UCL) reminded us that disadvantage was always with us, as we now had different sorts of higher educations, offering Degrees of choice: class, race, gender and higher education.
The 2005 Oxford Review of Educationarticle by SRHE Fellow Rosemary Deem (Royal Holloway) and Kevin J Brehony (Surrey) ‘Management as ideology: the case of ‘new managerialism’ in higher education’ was cited by almost every subsequent writer on managerialism in HE. 2005 was not quite the year in which journal articles appeared first online; like many others in 2005 that article appeared online only two years later in 2007, as publishers digitised their back catalogues. However by 2005 IT had become a dominant force in institutional management. Libraries were reimagined as library and information services, student administration was done in virtual learning environments, teaching was under the influence of learning management systems.
The 2005 book edited by Paul Ashwin (Lancaster), Changing higher education: the development of learning and teaching, reviewed changes in higher education and ways of thinking about teaching and learning over the previous 30 years. Doyenne of e-learning Diana Laurillard (UCL) said: “Those of us working to improve student learning, and seeking to exploit elearning to do so, have to ride each new wave of technological innovation in an attempt to divert it from its more natural course of techno-hype, and drive it towards the quality agenda.” Singh, O’Donoghue and Worton (all Wolverhampton) provided an overview of the effects of eLearning on HE andin an article in the Journal of University Teaching Learning Practice.
UK HE in 2005
Higher education in the UK kept on growing. HESA recorded 2,287,540 students in the UK in 2004-2005, of whom 60% were full-time or sandwich students. Universities UK reported a 43% increase in student numbers in the previous ten years, with the fastest rise being in postgraduate numbers, and there were more than 150,000 academic staff in universities.
Government oversight of HE went from the Department for Education (DfE) to the Department for Education and Employment (DfEE), then in 2001 the Department for Education and Skills (DfES), which itself would only last until 2007. Gillian Shepherd was the last Conservative Secretary of State for Education before the new Labour government in 1997 installed David Blunkett until 2001, when Estelle Morris, Charles Clarke and Ruth Kelly served in more rapid succession. No party would dare to tangle with HE funding in 1997, so a cross-party pact set up the Dearing Review, which reported after the election. Dearing pleaded for its proposals to be treated as a package but government picked the bits it liked, notably the introduction of an undergraduate fee of £1000, introduced in 1998. Perhaps Kelly Clarkson got it right: You had your chance, you blew it.
The decade after 1995 featured 12 separate pieces of legislation. The Conservative government’s 1996 Education (Student Loans) Act empowered the Secretary of State to subsidise private sector student loans. Under the 1996 Education (Scotland) Act the Scottish Qualifications Authority replaced the Scottish Examination Board and the Scottish Vocational Education Council. There was a major consolidation of previous legislation from the 1944 Education Act onwards in the 1996 Education Act, and the 1997 Education Act replaced the National Council for Vocational Qualifications and the School Curriculum and Assessment Authority with the Qualifications and Curriculum Authority.
The new Labour government started by abolishing assisted places in private schools with the 1997 Education (Schools) Act (an immediate reward for party stalwarts, echoed 20 years later when the new Labour government started by abolishing VAT relief for private schools). The 1998 Education (Student Loans) Act allowed public sector student loans to be transferred to the private sector, which would prompt much subsequent comment and criticism when tranches of student debt were sold, causing unnecessary trouble. The 1998 Teaching and Higher Education Act established General Teaching Councils for England and Wales, made new arrangements for the registration and training of teachers, changed HE student financial support arrangements and allowed fees to rise to £3000, passing narrowly after much Parliamentary debate. The 1998 School Standards and Framework Act followed, before the 2000 Learning and Skills Act abolished the Further Education Funding Councils and set up the Learning and Skills Council for England, the National Council for Education and Training for Wales, and the Adult Learning Inspectorate. The 2001 Special Educational Needs and Disability Act extended provision against discrimination on grounds of disability in schools, further and higher education.
The 2004 Higher Education Act established the Arts and Humanities Research Council, created a Director of Fair Access to Higher Education, made arrangements for dealing with students’ complaints and made provisions relating to grants and loans to students in higher and further education. In 2005 in the Journal of Education PolicyRobert Jones (Edinburgh) and Liz Thomas (HE Academy) identified three strands – academic, utilitarian and transformative – in policy on access and widening participation in the 2003 White Paper which preceded the 2004 Act. They concluded that “… within a more differentiated higher education sector different aspects of the access discourse will become dominant in different types of institutions.” Which it did, but perhaps not quite in the way they might have anticipated.
John Taylor (then Southampton) looked much further back, at the long-term implications of the devastating 1981 funding cuts, citing Maurice Kogan and Stephen Hanney (both Brunel) “Before then, there was very little government policy for higher education. After 1981, the Government took a policy decision to take policy decisions, and other points such as access and efficiency moves then followed.”.
SRHE and research into higher education in 2005
With long experience of engaging with HE finance policy, Nick Barr and Iain Crawford (both LSE) boldly titled their 2005 book Financing Higher Education: Answers From the UK. But policies were not necessarily joined up, and often pointed in different directions, as SRHE Fellow Paul Trowler (Lancaster), Joelle Fanghanel (City University, London) and Terry Wareham (Lancaster) noted in their analysis, in Studies in Higher Education, of initiatives to enhance teaching and learning: “… these interventions have been based on contrasting underlying theories of change and development. One hegemonic theory relates to the notion of the reflective practitioner, which addresses itself to the micro (individual) level of analysis. It sees reflective practitioners as potential change agents. Another relates to the theory of the learning organization, which addresses the macro level … and sees change as stemming from alterations in organizational routines, values and practices. A third is based on a theory of epistemological determinism … sees the discipline as the salient level of analysis for change. … other higher education policies exist … not overtly connected to the enhancement of teaching and learning but impinging upon it in very significant ways in a bundle of disjointed strategies and tacit theories.”
SRHE Fellow Ulrich Teichler (Kassel) might have been channelling The Killers as he looked on the bright side about the growth of research on higher education in Europe in the European Journal of Education: “Research on higher education often does not have a solid institutional base and it both benefits and suffers from the fact that it is a theme-base area of research, drawing from different disciplines, and that the borderline is fuzzy between researchers and other experts on higher education. But a growth and quality improvement of research on higher education can be observed in recent years …”
European research into HE had reached the point where Katrien Struyven, Filip Dochy and Steven Janssens (all Leuven) could review evaluation and assessment from the student’s point of view in Evaluation and Assessment in Higher Education:“… students’ perceptions about assessment significantly influence their approaches to learning and studying. Conversely, students’ approaches to study influence the ways in which they perceive evaluation and assessment.” Lin Norton (Liverpool Hope) and four co-authors surveyed teachers’ beliefs and intentions about teaching in a much-cited article in Higher Education: “… teachers’ intentions were more orientated towards knowledge transmission than were their beliefs, and problem solving was associated with beliefs based on learning facilitation but with intentions based on knowledge transmission.” Time for both students and teachers to realise it was not all about you.
SRHE had more than its share of dislocations and financial difficulties in the decade to 2005. After its office move to Devonshire Street in London in 1995 the Society’s financial position declined steadily, to the point where survival was seriously in doubt. Little more than a decade later we would have no worries, but until then the Society’s chairs having more than one bad day were Leslie Wagner (1994-1995), Oliver Fulton (1996-1997), Diana Green (1998-1999), Jennifer Bone (2000-2001), Rob Cuthbert (2002-2003) and Ron Barnett (2004-2005). The crisis was worst in 2002, when SRHE’s tenancy in Devonshire Street ended. At the same time the chairs of SRHE’s three committees stepped down and SRHE’s funds and prospective income reached their lowest point, sending a shiver down the spine of the governing Council. The international committee was disbanded but the two new incoming committee chairs for Research (Maria Slowey, Dublin City University) and Publications (Rosemary Deem, Royal Holloway) began immediately to restore the Society’s academic and financial health. SRHE Director Heather Eggins arranged a tenancy at the Institute of Physics in 76 Portland Place, conveniently near the previous office. From 2005 the new Director, Helen Perkins, would build on the income stream created by Rosemary Deem’s skilful negotiations with publishers to transform the Society’s finances and raise SRHE up. The annual Research Conference would go from strength to strength, find a long-term home in Celtic Manor, and see SRHE’s resident impresario François Smit persuade everyone that they looked good on the dancefloor. But that will have to wait until we get to SRHE in 2015.
Rob Cuthbert is editor of SRHE News and the SRHE Blog, Emeritus Professor of Higher Education Management, University of the West of England and Joint Managing Partner, Practical Academics. Email [email protected]. Twitter/X @RobCuthbert. Bluesky @robcuthbert22.bsky.social.
MIT president Saly Kornbluth said the agreement went against freedom of expression and the university’s independence, and that it was “fundamentally” inconsistent with MIT’s “core belief that scientific funding should be based on scientific merit alone”.
Last week, the Trump administration sent a compact to nine US colleges laying out sweeping demands including capping international enrolments, banning the use of race or sex in hiring and freezing tuition for five years. In return, schools that signed on would receive competitive advantages from the government.
In a letter to US education secretary Linda McMahon, Kornbluth said: “We must hear facts and opinions we don’t like – and engage respectfully with those whom we disagree.”
Under the terms of the compact, signatories must abolish university units that “punish” or “belittle” conservative ideas, and all college employees “must abstain in their official capacity from actions or speech related to politics”.
If adopted by the institutions, it would set a 15% cap on international undergraduate students including a 5% limit for any given country. It also stipulates that universities must hand over international student information, including discipline records, upon the request of the government.
MIT is the first of the nine institutions to officially respond to the administration before the October 20 deadline. Stakeholders said the White House is likely aiming to expand the compact if institutions engage.
The day after it was sent, the University of Texas swiftly announced it was “honoured” to be a part of Trump’s proposal, though the remaining institutions were notably quiet on the agreement, which has received strong pushback from faculty leadership and administrators.
Faculty senates at the University of Virginia and the University of Arizona voted to oppose the compact with overwhelming majorities, while Dartmouth College president said in a statement she was “deeply committed” to the university’s values and would always defend its “fierce independence”.
In Tennessee, academic and workers unions have called on Vanderbilt University to reject what they called “Trump’s Fascist Compact”, with a petition from Graduate Workers United garnering almost 1,000 signatures as of October 8.
Elsewhere, California governor Gavin Newsom quickly responded saying: “California universities that bend to the will of Donald Trump and sign this insane ‘compact’ will lose billions in state funding – IMMEDIATELY.”
“California will not bankroll schools that sign away academic freedom,” he wrote on October 2, sending a clear sign to the University of Southern California (USC), the only Californian college to receive the proposal so far.
Alongside MIT, the compact demands were thrust upon: Vanderbilt University, Dartmouth College, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Southern California, the University of Texas, the University of Arizona, Brown University and the University of Virginia.
California universities that bend to the will of Donald Trump and sign this insane ‘compact’ will lose billions in state funding – IMMEDIATELY
Gavin Newsom, Governor of California
While it remains unclear how the recipients were chosen, stakeholders have noted that the list includes high prestige universities as well as public flagships, likely to generate maximum sectoral and media impact.
“The compact forces all nine institutions to reveal their positions; it sets the narrative for media reporting and public discussion of the points in the compact; and starts a public sorting of university responses to these policy priorities,” Boston College professor Chris Glass told The PIE News.
Whether MIT’s response emboldens the universities to reject the proposal remains to be seen, but even without the signatures, “the compact creates lasting ripples, as universities, accreditors, and state officials recalibrate for future policy fights,” said Glass.
The compact’s international student cap is yet another clear sign of Trump’s anti-immigration stance, though experts have noted that none of the nine universities have undergraduate international student populations that exceed the 15% limit.
While U Penn and USC are both close to the threshold with international undergraduate populations around the 14% mark, the universities of Virginia, Arizona and Texas at Austin all enrol less than 6% international undergraduates, according to analysis by Soka University of America professor Ryan Allen.
As such, Glass speculated the cap was intended to signal to universities beyond the nine, especially those above the 15% threshold, that they may face future scrutiny.
“Just by introducing the cap, the administration sets the terms of debate and sends a strong message – to its base, to all universities in the US, and to prospective international students,” he said.
As per Allen’s analysis, just 14 of the top 114 US universities have undergraduate international populations that exceed the proposed limit.
If it is implemented, the impact of the cap by itself might not be significant, “but this is part of an overall message that the US does not want international students … It’s tough to grapple with in the classroom because our students are feeling that message,” said Allen.
Typically, international students make up a larger proportion of postgraduate than undergraduate enrolments, though universities rarely disaggregate the two in overall student counts.
And yet: “Undergrad admissions are much more contentious and political than grad school. So, the idea that international students are somehow taking seats from Americans is much more salient in that space,” said Allen.
Hi all. I thought I would take some time to have a chat about how research policy is evolving in other countries, because I think there are some lessons we need to learn here in Canada.
One piece of news that struck me this week came from Switzerland, where the federal government is slashing the budget of the Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) by 20%. If the Swiss, a technological powerhouse of a nation, with a broad left-right coalition in power and a more or less balanced budget, are cutting back on science like this, then we might all have to re-think the idea that being anti-Science is just a manifestation of right-wing populism. Higher education as a whole has some thinking to do.
Over to Australia, where a few months ago the government set up a Strategic Examination of Research and Development, which released a discussion paper, held consultations and got feedback (which it published) and has now released six more “issue” papers for consultation which detail government thinking in many different and more detailed ways. If this sounds magical to you, it is because you are from Canada, where the standard practice for policymaking is to do everything behind closed doors and treat stakeholders like mushrooms (in the dark with only fecal matter for company) instead of a place where policy-making is treated as a serious endeavour in which public input and expert advice is welcomed.
For today’s purposes however, what matters is not process but policy. The review is seriously considering a number of fairly radical ideas, such as creating a few national “focus areas” for research funding, which would attract higher rates of overhead and requiring institutions to focus their efforts in one of these priority areas via mission-based compacts (which are sort of like Ontario’s Multi-Year Agreements, only they are meaningful) so as to build scale and specialization.
Whew.
One thing that strikes me as odd about both the UK and Australian line of thinking is the idea that institutional specialization matters all that much. While lots of research is done at the level of the individual lab, most “big science” – the stuff people who dream about specialization have in mind when the talk about science – happens in teams which span many institutions, and more often than not across national borders as well. I get the sense that the phenomenon of institutional rankings have fried policy makers’ brains somewhat: they seem to think that the correct way to think about science is at the level of the institution, rather than labs or networks of laboratories. It’s kind of bananas. We can be glad that this kind of thinking has not infected Canadian policy too much because the network concept is more ingrained here.
Which brings me to news here at home.
The rumour out of Ottawa is that in the next few months (still not clear if this is going to be fall 2025 or Spring 2026) there will be an announcement of a new envelope of money for research. But very definitely not inquiry-driven research. No, this is money which the feds intend to spend as part of the increase in “defence” spending which is supposed to rise to 2% of GDP by 2025-2026 and 5% by 2035. So, the kinds of things it will need to go to will be “security”, likely defined relatively generously. It will be for projects in space, protection of critical infrastructure, resiliency, maybe energy production, etc. I don’t think this is going to be all about STEM and making widgets – there will be at least some room for social science in these areas and maybe humanities, too, though this seems to me a harder pitch to make. It is not clear from what I have heard if this is going to be one big pie or a series of smaller pies, divided up wither by mission or by existing granting council. But the money does seem to be on its way.
Now before I go any further, I should point out that I have not heard anyone say that these new research envelopes are actually going to contain new money beyond what was spent in 2024-25. As I pointed out a couple of weeks ago, that would be hard to square with the government’s deficit-fighting commitments.
In fact, if I had to guess right now, the best-case scenario would be that the Liberals will do this by taking some or all of the 88% of the Budget 2024 research commitment to the tri-councils and push it into these new envelopes (worst-case scenario: they nuke the 88% of the 2024 Budget commitment they haven’t yet spent and claw back money from existing commitments to make these new envelopes).
So, obviously no push here for institutional specialization, but where our debate echoes those of the UK and Australia is that all three governments seem to want to shift away from broad-based calls for inquiry driven research and toward more mission-based research in some vaguely defined areas of national priority. I know this is going to irritate and anger many people, but genuinely I don’t see many politically practical alternatives right now. As I said back here: if defending existing inquiry-driven tri-council budgets is the hill the sector chooses to die on, we’re all going to be in big trouble.
No one will forcing individual researchers or institutions to be part of this shift to mission-driven research, but clearly that’s where the money is going to be. So, my advice to VPs Research is: get your ducks in a row on this now. Figure out who in your institution does anything that can even tangentially be referred to as “security-enhancing”. Figure out what kinds of pitches you might want to make. Start testing your elevator pitches. There will be rewards to first movers in this area.
Director of Universities UK International (UUKi), Jamie Arrowsmith, has issued an update to the sector regarding various changes due to take place as a result of the government’s immigration white paper, published in May 2025.
UUKi, the sector body representing UK universities’ global interests, has been engaging with officials on the various proposals facing the sector. This includes the government’s ambition to implement an international student levy, shortening the Graduate Route from two years to 18 months, and tightening the Basic Compliance Assessment (BCA) thresholds that universities are held to.
Arrowsmith’s update brought the news that the Home Office has committed to phased implementation of the new BCA thresholds. He also said that the Home Office has also committed to “discretionary exceptions for smaller providers and for institutions that would have passed under current rules”.
The government’s proposal is to raise the minimum pass requirement of each BCA metric by five percentage points, so that a sponsor must maintain a course enrolment rate of at least 95% and a course completion rate of 90% in order to pass the compliance threshold.
However, the change that has most unsettled the sector is the proposal to tighten the visa refusal rate compliance threshold, halving it from 10% to 5%.
Arrowsmith told members that UKVI is now piloting enhanced data sharing to give sponsors more insight into visa refusals – a step UUKi has long called for.
“While this is welcome, we’re clear that further systems and data improvements are needed as a matter of course to support institutions in adjusting to the tighter thresholds,” said Arrowsmith.
The incoming measures also include a traffic-light banding system that rates sponsors on compliance performance, with underperforming institutions facing being placed on a UKVI action plan or a possible recruitment cap.
“We’re also seeking greater clarity on the proposed red-amber-green rating system and will continue to engage through the Education Advisory Group and regular discussions with UKVI and the Home Office,” added Arrowsmith.
A spokesperson for the Home Office told The PIENews: “We strongly value the contribution of international students and recognise their importance to the UK’s world-leading universities. That’s why we’re tightening the rules to ensure those coming here are genuine students and education providers take their responsibilities seriously.”
Communications surrounding curtailing the Graduate Route are “expected imminently”, said Arrowsmith, and UUKi is arguing strongly against the implementation from the January/February 2026 intake, “so that those students are able to access the two-year offer they applied for”.
“We continue to press for written confirmation that PhD graduates will retain three years’ eligibility, and for changes to apply from a set course start date rather than a graduation date, to provide clarity for institutions and applicants,” he continued.
We strongly value the contribution of international students and recognise their importance to the UK’s world-leading universities. That’s why we’re tightening the rules to ensure those coming here are genuine students and education providers take their responsibilities seriously UK Home Office
News from this week’s Labour Party conference has brought some overdue clarity on the proposed levy on universities’ income from international students. Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson confirmed the measure remains on the table, with the revenue earmarked to fund targeted maintenance grants.
The announcement sparked backlash from sector leaders. Some took aim at the government’s assumptions that universities will be able to simply pass the levy onto international students through higher tuition fees, while others argued that it’s unfair to force international students to essentially pay for domestic maintenance grants.
As the government seeks to implement these reforms, most can be enacted through changes to the immigration rules without requiring an act of parliament — the only exception being the levy on international student fees.
According to reports, a brief note issued by the Department of Home Affairs through the Provider Registration and International Student Management System (PRISMS), which oversees international student data, confirms that evidence levels have been updated.
“The September 2025 evidence level update for countries and education providers (based on student visa outcome data from 1 July 2024 to 30 June 2025) has taken place, effective for applications lodged on or after 30 September 2025,” read a statement by the DHA on the PRISMS website.
Consultants and universities in Australia are able to work out these levels through the government’s document checklist tool, which reveals a provider’s risk standing based on the requirements triggered when paired with a student’s country of origin.
Reports suggest that level 1 (lowest risk) includes Bangladesh and Sri Lanka; level 2 (moderate risk) includes India, Bhutan, Vietnam, China, and Nepal; and level 3 (highest risk) includes Fiji, the Philippines, Pakistan, and Colombia.
Although India and Vietnam, both prominent source markets for Australia, improved from level 3 to level 2 on the back of stronger grant rates, China slipped from level 1 to level 2, possibly due to a surge in asylum applications from Chinese nationals, particularly students, as some reports suggest.
While education providers in Australia registered under CRICOS (Commonwealth Register of Institutions and Courses for Overseas Students) are assigned an evidence level, each country is also given one based on its past performance with student visas, particularly visa refusals, asylum applications, and breaches of conditions.
Are there not more Indians applying for protection visas? Hasn’t Nepal followed Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in political turmoil, where the economy has suffered? This has raised concerns around students meeting GS requirements Ravi Lochan Singh, Global Reach
The combination of provider and country levels determines the documents required for an international student’s visa application.
Stakeholders have highlighted the lack of transparency in assessing country risk levels, particularly as students from countries with reduced risk ratings may still arrive in Australia under precarious conditions.
“Are there not more Indians applying for protection visas? Hasn’t Nepal followed Sri Lanka and Bangladesh in political turmoil, where the economy has suffered? This has raised concerns around students meeting GS requirements. There are also whispers that certain operators may encourage students to apply for protection visas,” stated Ravi Lochan Singh, managing director, Global Reach.
Visa prioritisation is already tied to intended caps, with applications processed on a first-in, first-out basis until a provider reaches 80% of its allocation, explained Singh.
With almost all universities now streamlined for visas and the majority promoted from level 2 to level 1, lowest risk, and almost none remaining in level 3, the evidence-level system appears unnecessary to some.
“The concept of ‘streamlining’ (and then the development later of the SSVF) took place at a time where there was a whole-of-government focus on growing international student numbers and increasing the value, while maintaining integrity, of the highly important international education sector,” shared Mike Ferguson, pro vice-chancellor of Charles Sturt University.
According to Ferguson, a former DHA official, “English and financial requirements were streamlined as part of the visa process, based on a risk assessment, given the other safeguards in place – obligations enforced by TEQSA and ASQA in terms of providers ensuring students have sufficient English proficiency and the use of the GTE requirement to consider a student’s holistic economic circumstances.”
However, with international student numbers rising since the early 2010s, “times have changed” and the focus has shifted to managing enrolments and ensuring sustainable growth, explained Ferguson.
“My view is that all students should provide evidence of funds and English with the visa process. That would align with community expectations, support enhanced integrity and potentially help to some degree with some of the course hopping behaviour we are seeing (though the latter requires a range of measures),” he contineud.
“DHA could still determine the degree to which they scrutinise the funds submitted but that would be based on a more holistic and granular risk assessment – not just based on country and provider.”
Evidence levels of select Australian institutions, showing whether they have remained steady, been upgraded, or downgraded, as shared by Ravi Lochan Singh. Correction: Deakin University was previously categorized under risk level 2 (not 1) and has since been upgraded to 1.
Singh further stated that concerns around visa hopping and attrition could be exacerbated, as international students may now enter Australia through universities and then transition to higher-risk, non-university sectors without needing new visa applications, especially since Australia has yet to mandate linking study visas to the institution of initial enrolment, unlike neighbouring New Zealand.
Moreover, Singh pointed out that when students arrive without adequate financial backing, it can increase visa misuse, which may lead authorities to tighten risk classifications again.
“The document checklist tool provides a clear framework for assessing the risk level of a university. However, it raises concerns about the recent trend of promoting the application of visas without financial funds, as suggested by the document checklist tools. While these visas may be approved, this approach could potentially lead to the return of the country to risk level 3 in the future,” stated Singh.
“For instance, if a country’s risk level is 3 (such as Pakistan), and Home Affairs requires financial and English requirements to be attached to the visa application, the university’s risk level is inferred to be 2. If the Home Affairs tool waives this requirement, the risk level is reduced to 1.”
The PIE has requested comment from the DHA and is awaiting a response.
Australia’s reported changes to country evidence levels come just a month after the government announced an additional 25,000 international student places for next year, raising the cap to 295,000.
Hey everyone, quick bit of exciting Re: University news before we get started. Our speakers are beginning to go live on the site here. We’ll be shouting them out on the blog over the next few weeks, so watch this space. Also, a huge thanks to our many dynamic partners and sponsors for making it all happen, check them out here. And of course, thank you to everyone who has already grabbed a ticket, we are already 75% sold out and we are looking forward to having some very interesting conversations with you in January. Anyway, on with the blog…
Question: What policy would increase student preparation for post-secondary education, thus lowering dropouts and average time-to-completion while at the same time lowering per-student delivery costs?
Answer: Introducing (or re-introducing) Grade 13 and move (or return) to make 3-year degrees the norm.
It’s a policy that has so many benefits it’s hard to count them all.
Let’s start with the basic point that older students on the whole are better-prepared students. In North America, we ask students to grow up and make decisions about academics and careers awfully early. In some parts of the world, they deal with this by having students take “gap years” to sort themselves out. In North America we are very Calvinist (not the good kind) about work and study, and think of tie off just to mature and think as “wasteful”, so we drive them from secondary school to university/college as fast as possible.
But there’s no reason that the line between secondary and post-secondary education needs to be where it is today. In antebellum America, the line was in people’s early teens; and age 18 wasn’t an obvious line until after World War II (Martin Luther King Jr. started at Morehead College age 15 because it decided to start taking high school juniors). The Philippines drew the line after 10 years of schooling until about six years ago. Ontario’s elimination of grade 13 was one of the very few examples anywhere in the world of a jurisdiction deciding to roll the age of transition backwards.
But it’s not clear in Ontario – which has now run this experiment for nearly 25 years – that the system is better off if you make students go to post-secondary education at 18 rather than 19. If you give students an extra year to mature, they probably have a better sense of what specific academic subjects actually consist of and how they lead to various careers. Because they have a better sense of what they want to do with their lives, they study with more purpose. They are more engaged. And almost everything we know about students suggests that more engaged students are easier to teach, switch programs less often, and drop out less frequently.
These all seem like good outcomes that we threw away for possibly no good reason.
Students would spend another year at home. Not all of them would enjoy that, but their parents’ pocket-books sure would. They’d also spend one more year in classes of approximately thirty instead of classes of approximately three hundred. Again, this seems like a good thing.
And as for cost, well, the per-student cost of secondary education is significantly lower than that of the per-student cost of post-secondary education. I don’t just mean for families, for whom the cost of secondary school is zero. I also mean for governments who are footing the bill for the post-secondary part of the equation, too (at least this is the case everywhere outside Ontario, which has abysmal levels of per-student spending on public post-secondary education).
There really is only one problem with moving from a 6+6+4 system of education to a 6+7+3 system. It’s not that a three-year degree is inherently bad or inadequate. Quebec has a 6+5+2+3 system and as far as I know no one complains. Hell, most of Europe, and to some extent Manitoba, are on a 6+6+3 system and no one blinks.
No, the problem is space. Add another year of secondary school and you need bigger secondary schools. And no one is likely to want to get into that, particularly when the system is already bursting – in most of the country, particularly in western Canada – from a wave of domestic enrolments. It is possible that some universities and colleges could convert some of their space to house high schools (the University of Winnipeg has quite a nice one in Wesley Hall), but that wouldn’t be a universal solution. Architecture and infrastructure in this case act as a limiting factor on policy change. However, by the early-to-mid 2030s when secondary student and then post-secondary numbers level off or even start to decline again, that excuse will be gone. Why wouldn’t we consider this?
(Technically another potential solution here of is to adopt something like a CEGEP, since these which arguably bridge the gap between secondary and university better that grade 13 did. But the real estate/infrastructure demands of creating a new class of institutions probably make that a non-starter).
Anyways, this is just idle talk. This might be a complete waste of time and money, of course. My suggestions about possible benefits could be totally off. Interestingly, as far as I know, Ontario never did a post-policy implementation review about eliminating grade 13/Ontario Academic Credits. Did we gain or lose as a society? What were the cost implications? Seems like the kind of questions to which you’d want to know the answers (well, I wish I lived in a country that thought these were questions worth answering, anyway). And even if we thought there were benefits to keeping students out of post-secondary for one more year, architectural realities would almost certainly get in the way.
But if we’re genuinely interested in thinking about re-making systems of education, these are the sorts of questions we should be asking. Take nothing for granted.
Some 16,100 international students could be deterred from studying in the UK in the first year universities are levied 6% of all their international student fees, comes the stark warning from a new report from the think tank Public First.
Should the government make good on the proposal – outlined in the immigration white paper earlier this year – this figure could rocket to more than 77,000 students in the first five years of its implementation, the report predicts.
The government expects universities to pass the increased costs onto international students themselves by raising fees. But Public First cautioned that such a move would have catastrophic consequences by driving international students away, hitting the UK’s economy by £2.2 billion over five years and leading to a reduction of 135,000 university places for domestic students.
The think tank projected that a 6.38% international student fee increase – necessary for universities to pass on the entire cost of the levy – would have a far greater impact on students’ decision to study in the UK than the government has anticipated.
This is because the government’s forecasts were based on data for EU students. However, Public First noted that price elasticity of demand for non-EU students is greater than their EU counterparts – meaning they would be more likely to be look elsewhere if they found UK fees too expensive.
Jonathan Simons, partner at Public First and author of the report, noted that the projected impact of the levy “is much more severe than had been predicted previously”.
It is not widely understood just how much our economy is supported by international students and it’s really crucial that any policy that could affect international student numbers is considered through this lens
Jonathan Simons, Public First
“This, of course, will hit our universities, around 40% of whom are already in deficit, and that could lead to a further loss of jobs, a loss of university places for UK students and a loss of vital research investment,” he added.
“Perhaps even more significant, though, is the hit an international student levy could cause to local, regional and national economies across the UK. It is not widely understood just how much our economy is supported by international students and it’s really crucial that any policy that could affect international student numbers is considered through this lens.”
Henri Murison, chief executive of the Northern Powerhouse Partnership and chair of the Growing Together Alliance, said that the levy was opposed by all of England’s major regional employer organisations “because the resulting decline in international students would be hugely damaging to all the regions of the country”.
“The Chancellor should take note of the economic damage of this policy which undermines a critical UK export and we have requested an urgent meeting to raise our concerns,” he said.
The proposed levy has been widely criticised by higher education institutions.
Last month, a HEPI analysis predicted that UK universities could take a £621m hit if the policy goes ahead, with those situated in big metropolitan cities set to be the worst affected.
The notice, published in the Federal Register on September 24, proposes an overhaul of the H-1B visa process to establish a “weighted selection process” favouring “higher skilled and higher paid” workers.
If finalised, the proposal would give greater odds of selection to workers with higher wages, if the number of applicants exceeds the 85,000-limit set by Congress, which has been the case every year for over a decade. The system would replace the current lottery selection process.
The changes – initially put forward for White House review in July – follow a major hike in the H-1B visa fee to $100,000 announced last week, triggering widespread panic among US companies and prospective foreign employees.
Prior to the announcement, employers typically paid between $2,000 to $5,000 for H-1B visa applications, with Trump claiming the increase would put an end to employers “abusing” the system by hiring foreign workers at a “significant discount” in comparison to American workers.
As per yesterday’s proposal, prospective employees would be assigned to four wage bands, with applicants in the top band (level four) placed into the selection pool four times, those in level three entered three times, and so on.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has said the process would “incentivise employers to offer higher wages or higher skilled position to H-1B workers and disincentivise the existing widespread use of the H-1B program to fill lower paid or lower skilled positions”.
The department said it “recognised the value” in maintaining opportunities for lower wage earners and maintained they would not be precluded from the visa, unlike the Trump’s 2021 proposal which “left little or no opportunity” for lower earners.
But critics argue the proposed weighted system will harm US employers’ ability to build international knowledge and fill jobs.
“By favouring more experienced foreign workers and reducing the number of new job entrants, US companies will find themselves struggling to grow,” Intead CEO Ben Waxman told The PIE News.
The plans now face a 30-day public comment period before they are considered by the administration for a final rule, a process that could take several months.
Extensive feedback to government from US businesses on how the proposal would damage US competitiveness is widely expected, with experts also anticipating possible court challenges against the legislation.
Early reports from Bloomberg have suggested the US Chamber of Commerce has begun polling member companies about a potential lawsuit to challenge the $100,000 fee hike.
DHS itself has estimated that 5,200 small businesses currently employing H-1B visa holders would suffer significant damages due to loss of labour.
“There simply are not enough American computer science graduates to support the decades-long record of US innovation and economic growth. That is the wonder of the US tech sector,” said Waxman.
“Why would the US government want to constrain that engine?” he asked.
With analysis by the Chamber of Commerce forecasting a continued decline in the US labour force participation by 2030, advocacy bodies such as IIE have emphasised the importance of international students to fill gaps in labour markets across the country.
There simply are not enough American computer science graduates to support the decades-long record of US innovation and economic growth
Ben Waxman, Intead
The visa, popular with tech companies, enables US employers to temporarily employ foreign workers in “specialty occupations” spanning a wide range of industries from healthcare and teaching to computer science and financial analysis.
Under the current system, there is a statutory annual cap of 85,000 new H-1B visas: 65,00 for regular H-1B visas and 20,000 for individuals with advanced degrees from US institutions known as the master’s cap.
Each year, US employers submit registrations to USCIS for each worker they want to sponsor for a visa. Typically, this number exceeds the cap, in which case, applicants are placed into a random lottery which determines who is awarded a visa.
Since 2012, 60% or more of H-1B workers have held a computer-related job.
Amazon remains the single largest sponsor, with 10,000 out of its total 1.56 million employees holding H-1B visas. Microsoft, Apple and Meta have also expanded foreign hiring through this stream in recent years, according to Newsweek analysis of new federal data.
Commentators have already warned that if the new structure is implemented, the US tech sector will ramp up offshoring facilities and jobs. “Not the outcome anyone in the US wants,” said Waxman.
The visa program has been the subject of much debate in recent months, with Elon Musk, himself once an H-1B worker, coming out in defence of the visa against calls for its abolition from some MAGA hardliners who argued it allowed firms to suppress wages and sidelines American workers.
Denial rates for H-1B visas peaked at 15% during Trump’s first administration due to stricter immigration rules and the tightening of the definition of “specialty occupations”.
India, America’s largest source of international students, is also the top country of origin for H-1B visa holders, with Indian nationals making up 73% of new H-1B approvals in 2023.
China was the second-most common birthplace of H-1B workers, accounting for 12% of skilled workers approved in 2023, while no other birthplace accounted for more than 2% of the total.
During the visit, Al-Benyan met with Australia’s minister of education, Jason Clare, where discussions focused on expanding ties in higher education, scientific research, and innovation, with emphasis on joint university initiatives, including twinning programs and faculty and student exchanges designed to build stronger academic links between the two countries.
The research collaboration was prominently featured on the agenda, with both sides highlighting opportunities in fields such as artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, renewable energy, and health sciences. The minister also discussed investment opportunities in Saudi Arabia’s evolving education sector under Vision 2030, with a view to establishing local branches and research centers.
Australia’s expertise in technical and vocational training was another focal point, as Saudi looks to enhance human capital development and equip its young population with the skills needed to succeed in the future labor market. Both ministers underlined the importance of supporting Saudi students in Australia by strengthening academic pathways and ensuring a welcoming educational and social environment.
As well as his meeting with Clare, Al-Benyan held talks with professor Phil Lambert, a leading Australian authority on curriculum development. Their discussions centered on collaboration with Saudi Arabia’s National Curriculum Centre to develop learning programs that promote critical thinking, creativity, and innovation.
The meeting reviewed best practices in student assessment, teacher training, and professional certification, aligning with global standards. Opportunities for joint research on performance evaluation and digital education methods were also explored with the aim of integrating advanced technologies into classrooms.
Al-Benyan also took part in the Saudi-Australian Business Council meeting in Sydney, where he highlighted investment opportunities in the Kindgdom’s education sector in line with Vision 2030.
Education is a key pillar globally and a central focus of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which aims to create a world class education system that nurtures innovation and drives future ready skills Sam Jamsheedi, president and chairman of the Australian Saudi Business Forum
Conversations covered the launching of scholarship and exchange programs, advancing educational infrastructure and technologies, and promoting joint research in priority fields such as health, energy, and artificial intelligence, underscoring the importance of developing programs to enhance academic qualifications and support initiatives for persons with disabilities, while reaffirming Saudi Arabia’s commitment to supporting investors through regulatory incentives and strategic backing.
“It was a pleasure to welcome the Minister of Education, His Excellency Yousef Al Benyan, as part of the official Ministry of Education, Saudi Arabia delegation from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to Australia,” said Sam Jamsheedi, president and chairman of the Australian Saudi Business Forum.
“Education is a key pillar globally and a central focus of Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030, which aims to create a world class education system that nurtures innovation and drives future ready skills.”
“Our Council was proud to host a roundtable with leading Australian universities and training providers, giving Ministerial attendees first hand insights into Australia’s capabilities across higher education, vocational training, and research collaboration.”
“Australian education already has a strong presence in the Kingdom, with a growing number of partnerships across early childhood education, schooling, technical training & university programs,” he added.
