It's open season on international students across the world; and countries have billions at stake

It's open season on international students across the world — and countries have nothing to lose but billions of dollars in tuition fees.

Britain is considering the future of a graduate visa program that offers a post-study right to work after a committee charged with looking at possible abuse of the system reported back last week (it found little). The new Dutch coalition government plans to reduce the number of foreign students as part of a package of measures targeting migration. Australia and Canada are also taking steps to limit their intakes. France’s plans to charge foreign students a deposit to cover potential “removal costs” were blocked by the country’s constitutional council in January.

The debate follows similar contours across these geographically dispersed markets. Student numbers have surged to records since the pandemic, putting upward pressure on housing costs and straining public services. This has added fuel to populist calls to restrict immigration. On the other side are higher-education providers, who stress the critical financial contribution that overseas students make to educational institutions and the economy; and employers who, other things equal, would prefer a wider pool of skilled labor from which to select. Dutch corporate leaders have criticized the Netherlands’ proposals, with some warning they may respond by expanding abroad instead. Executives at Anglo American Plc, Rio Tinto Plc and Siemens AG were among signatories to a letter warning Prime Minister Rishi Sunak that Britain’s migration policies may weaken the university sector, the Financial Times reported.

It’s an unfortunate trend. The concerns of overstretched housing markets are real, and growth in international student numbers has surely helped to drive up rents — particularly in cities such as London and Toronto that are the most popular destinations and where supply is already squeezed. But they aren’t the source of the problem, and the attention they are drawing looks a lot like scapegoating. International students make a significant contribution to the economies where they study, and countries risk alienating them at their peril. In Britain, where they typically pay two to three times as much as locals in tuition fees, one study last year estimated the total economic benefit of the 2021-22 cohort at £41.9 billion ($53 billion) against costs of £4.4 billion, for a benefit-to-cost ratio of 9.4 to 1.

The UK is particularly exposed to any serious downturn in demand, given the higher education sector’s financial dependence on international students. Domestic tuition fees have barely changed in 12 years so their real value has been eroded substantially by inflation, causing institutions to compensate by focusing on overseas recruitment. Critics may justifiably regard this as an unsatisfactory funding model that risks placing the interests of international students ahead of local citizens who are their primary responsibility; nevertheless, it is the system that has evolved, and any sudden change could wreak havoc. The Office for Students, the sector’s independent regulator, said last week that even a small reduction in student numbers could push 202 institutions, or 74% of the total, into deficit.

Nobody, to be clear, is talking about closing the door on international students — just moderating the numbers by trimming what the government considers to be the less desirable elements. Such calibration may be easier said than done. It is the tone of the messaging that’s concerning. This seems conflicted, to put it mildly. Home Secretary James Cleverly, who commissioned the review, said in December that higher education “should be a route to study and education, rather than a visa route by the back door.”

A visa route was precisely what the government was offering, though, when it brought in the program in 2021. This enables students who complete an eligible course to remain and work in the UK for two years after graduating (three years in the case of a Ph.D.), and was part of a strategy that aimed to boost Britain’s education exports to £35 billion a year and attract 600,000 international students by 2030. The problem was that it succeeded too well. A record 680,000 overseas students arrived in 2021-22, blowing past the target eight years early.

The suggestion advanced by Cleverly is that some international students sign up for cheaper, lower-quality courses simply because they want to immigrate. Too many then go into lower-paid care work, and are therefore not the “best and brightest” that the government sought to attract. This seems a little insulting to these students. They also have paid good money. How does the government know their desires? Young people sometimes don’t know their own intentions, though we all appreciate having options. This branding of a section of the student cohort discounts their aspirational potential: How does the government know that they won’t move into more skilled, higher-paid occupations later?

The approach smacks of the snobbery and elitism that have characterized British education policy in the past. (The proposition that some eligible courses aren’t worthy of enabling entry is also, incidentally, at odds with the UK’s projected image of being a world-leading education provider.) Chris Skidmore, the former universities minister who introduced the 600,000 target, told the BBC that it was “never clear what abuse was supposed to be taking place.” He isn’t alone in his bafflement.

The government should be wary of the wider signaling effect of its language on the international student body, which may conclude that the UK isn’t quite as welcoming a destination as they’d assumed. Businesses that take their customers for granted can come to regret it, and education is a major export industry for Britain. There are already early signs of student numbers falling, after the government tightened rules on dependents and raised the minimum salary for skilled worker visas to £38,700 from £26,200.

The irony is that the record worldwide bulge in international student numbers looks very like a temporary phenomenon. It is clearly a function of the plunge during the pandemic, when many were forced to delay their courses, and can be expected to subside as the current intakes work their way through the system — even without action from governments.

International students bring many benefits to their host countries beyond their financial contribution: They enrich cultural diversity, promote academic excellence and foster cross-border friendship and understanding. A retreat from the openness that enables these exchanges would leave the world poorer, and less well educated.