UK Master's Applications by Indian Students Decline by 21,800 Amid Migration Curbs

Study in UK: According to UK Home Office data based on the Office for National Statistics (ONS) figures, Indian students applying to UK Master's courses decreased by 16% over the year ending December 2023.

The data reported a 16% drop in Indian student applicants in the year ending December 2023, contributing to an overall 10% decrease in net migration compared to 2022.

“There were 116,455 sponsored study visa grants to main applicants that are Indian nationals in the year ending March 2024 (26% of the total), 21,717 fewer than the previous year," said the Home Office analysis, as reported by Free Press Journal.

“The majority (94,149, or 81%) of Indian students come to the UK to study at Master's level, and the recent decrease in Indian students was driven by 21,800 fewer Indian nationals coming to study at Master's level," the data further added.

Fall in application comes after strict visa regulations

This year, strict visa regulations were implemented in the UK to curb migration. The fall in the application is reported at a time when already a debate is going on about the Graduate Route Scheme. The government was contemplating whether to keep or axe the Graduate route visa and later decided to keep it for now as removing it can be heavily damaging for the university sector and especially for those universities that rely heavily on the funds provided by international students.

Indian students represented the largest group of students granted visas on this route (64,372), representing almost half (46 per cent) of the grants in the year to March 2024, as reported by the Economic Times.

"532,000 people left the UK and 1.22 million people arrived overall in 2023. Long-term net migration (the number of people immigrating minus the number emigrating) was provisionally estimated to be 685,000 in the year ending (YE) December 2023, compared with our updated estimate of 764,000 for the year ending December 2022; while it is too early to say if this is the start of a new downward trend, emigration increased in 2023, while new Home Office data show visa applications have fallen in recent months,” noted ONS.

As per ONS, Indians continue to be the largest group granted skilled worker visas with most of them working in the social care and health sector. The top five nationalities for long-term immigration to the UK in 2023 were - Indian (250,000), Nigerian (141,000), Chinese (90,000), Pakistani (83,000), and Zimbabwean (36,000).

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