British universities aren’t just teaching—they’re a pipeline, a gateway for hundreds of thousands to turn a student visa into permanent residency. That’s what Alp Mehmet revealed in the Spectator: over half a million foreigners have stayed in Britain via the student visa route since 2022. In 2023 alone, nearly half of all new visas went to international students and their families, many of whom never leave. And the UK is far from alone—universities across the West are increasingly serving as a backdoor to permanent residency.
This transformation didn’t happen by accident. Decades ago, as an immigration officer, Mehmet saw early signs of visa abuse—students gaming the system to stay indefinitely. But the real shift came under Theresa May’s government, which launched an ambitious International Education Strategy in 2019, aiming to lure 600,000 international students by 2030.
That target, as Mehmet notes, was met in just one year, thanks to a policy that allows foreign students to remain for two years after completing any program—whether a top-tier PhD or a short-term course. Universities, hungry for tuition revenue, jumped at the chance, rolling out dubious programs designed more for visa eligibility than for learning. Dependents—spouses and children—flood in alongside, granted work and schooling rights at the British taxpayer’s expense. Today, student visas account for nearly half of all UK entries, with postgraduates and their families swelling the tide.
But as noted, this isn’t just a British scandal—it’s a Western one.
[RELATED: Japan’s Push for More International Students Faces Growing Scrutiny]
From Europe and Canada to Australia and the United States, Western universities have become cogs in a global migration machine, fueled by a seductive yet flawed mantra: more immigrants equal more growth.
Joel Kotkin, a fellow at Chapman University and author of The Coming of Neo-Feudalism, punctures the myth of migration as an economic cure-all. Far from igniting prosperity, mass migration across the West has ushered in stagnation, eroding living standards and deepening reliance on welfare.
In the U.S., the influx of international students—led by Indian nationals, the largest group—fuels a tech industry eager for cheap labor. These students slip effortlessly into H-1B work permits, elbowing out American graduates who watch their career prospects evaporate. As I wrote in “Why Are U.S. Lawmakers Lobbying for Foreign Students? IDK, Because Rep. Ross Wouldn’t Tell Me,” this pipeline funnels foreign workers into jobs that could—and should—go to homegrown talent.
The system’s cheerleaders—politicians, corporate moguls, and university bureaucrats—dress up their motives in grand promises, hailing international students as the torchbearers of diversity, innovation, and a fix for aging populations. Left-wing critics are quick to pounce, branding any dissent as xenophobia, especially when Indian immigrants are in the spotlight. Writing for UnHerd, Richard Hanania pins hostility toward Indian nationals on right-wing extremists, arguing that conservatives have no case against their influx aside from bigotry—since Indian nationals, unlike Chinese nationals, he says, pose no national security threat. As always, a few bigots lurk in the shadows, but labeling opposition to this wave of migration as “racism” is a cheap dodge that aims to obscure the fact that the H-1B system shafts native-born workers, letting foreign nationals, whatever their national origin, tilt the economic playing field. If there’s prejudice here, it’s not from Americans—it’s from a system rigged against its own talent.
Western governments seem finally to be waking up, however.
As Gregory Brown notes in his Minding the World column, “The West Is Giving International Students a Colder Welcome.” In Canada, study permit approvals plummeted nearly 50 percent in 2024, with stricter caps planned for 2025. Australia has tightened its rules, replacing a lax “Genuine Temporary Entrant” test with a tougher “Genuine Student” standard and increasing English-language requirements. Britain is also cracking down, barring most students from bringing dependents and scrutinizing its post-study “Graduate Route.” Even in Japan, anti-international student sentiment is on the rise. In the U.S., student visa issuances are declining, and a proposed $100,000 fee on H-1B visas has led people to expect that the foreign student-to-worker pipeline will be disrupted. (However, I think the $100,000 fee is unlikely to make much difference. Employers can still hire H-1B workers through loopholes, pay below-market wages, or simply absorb the one-time cost over the six-year visa, leaving the fundamental incentives of the program intact.)
Brown frames the West’s shift as a loss—a dimming of its global appeal, a blow to universities reliant on foreign tuition. But I think a different perspective is warranted.
This “colder welcome” is no tragedy; it’s a long-overdue reckoning. For too long, western universities have peddled degrees as golden tickets to residency, reaping profits while domestic graduates—like those on Mackinac Island, as I detailed in “Mackinac Island’s Workforce Offers a Preview of the Grim Job Market Facing American College Grads”—face a job market rigged against them.
By tightening the reins, Western governments aren’t just protecting their economies—they’re reclaiming their institutions for the citizens they’re meant to serve. Foreign nationals may be facing a colder welcome, but it could yield a warmer future for the West’s own. I, for one, hope the West has the resolve to stay on this path.
Keep up with Jared Gould on X, and dive deeper into global higher education through our Minding the World column.
Author’s Note: This article comes from my weekly “Top of Mind” email, which usually goes out to subscribers on Thursdays. It’s a bit delayed this week, as I was away on vacation.
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You obviously know little about university finances. Or about markets, or much about the global talent pool. I actually know real people in the situation I described. But I will leave that.
One thing that strikes me is how much your description of “educating our own students.” Now this obviously doesn’t mean people from the upper crust — those who don’t prefer to go to fancy law schools. It means the disadvantaged. And what you describe sounds a lot like affirmative action. In fact, Trump has cancelled programs aimed at lower class people. I’ve written about that story here.
In fact, there used to be plenty of room in America both for its own striving risers, and the best from the rest of the world.
Sadly, this is no longer the case, apparently.
MAGA hates American Greatness!
When America loses its lead in science, I think a lot of people were rue the day.
When the United States — which under Trump is doing all it can to damage American science — is eclipsed by China — which is doing its best to attract he world’s best brains to its shores — I will not feel sorry for you.
I do feel bad for colleagues where I work who were recently laid off, because of the restrictions on foreign students. I will note that none of them were tenured faculty, with some foreign members in their ranks — even, horrors, Asians!
No, the laid off were non-tenure track instructors, supposedly long-term; office staff, mostly American women; janitorial and groundskeeper staff, mostly American men.
If I could, I would show them this piece, and ask them if they welcome the budget cuts due to restrictions on foreign students that resulted in the loss of their jobs.
“a warmer future for the West’s own” indeed.
I should mention that indeed, offers of tenure-track faculty jobs were rescinded, mostly from American faculty.
I just don’t buy the idea that large universities have truly been forced to lay people off because of cuts to international enrollment. Many of these institutions don’t need the revenue from foreign students to stay afloat. So the claim that declining numbers of international students justify layoffs is, frankly, insidious. Smaller colleges may be vulnerable, but for the big players, this is a political move—not a financial necessity. It’s the same playbook we saw with companies like Salesforce in San Francisco: they claimed they couldn’t afford to keep staff, but the layoffs were really about boosting stock value. Universities are doing something similar. They have the money to keep people on. If they were truly strapped for cash, why do administrators keep awarding themselves bonuses and salary increases?
And here’s the larger point: by creating enormous incentives for universities to attract foreign students, the West has disincentivized them from thinking creatively about how to generate resources that actually benefit their own citizens. There’s no reason to import so much “talent” when we already have it here. Reports consistently show that there are enough qualified American graduates to fill jobs in tech and other fields, but companies won’t hire them because foreign labor is cheaper.
Even if that weren’t the case—even if we didn’t have enough qualified people—the answer wouldn’t be to import talent. The answer would be to fix our own system. We should be educating our own students, improving K–12 schools so they arrive at college prepared, and ensuring college graduates leave with real skills and knowledge. Why should we rely on a global labor pool when there are kids across the street, in our own counties, who desperately need a better education?
As for your point about Trump harming American science, one way he’s doing that is by allowing hundreds of thousands of Chinese nationals into the U.S., which risks transferring sensitive scientific knowledge that could be used to advance foreign military technologies. And if you’re referring to cuts in funding, I think it’s important to note that more spending does not automatically mean better results. We’ve poured massive resources into science for decades, yet we’ve seen widespread fraud, irreproducibility, and a crisis of quality in the literature—all of which need serious oversight and accountability.