25 February 2025
Edinburgh University library. Local students not welcome. Photo kaysgeog / Flickr (CC BY-NC-ND 2.0).
On 22 January, Scotland’s First Minister John Swinney gave a speech in Glasgow at the Scottish headquarters of multinational financial services firm JP Morgan Chase – a revealing choice of venue and audience.
Despite having no power to alter UK immigration policy, Swinney called for a Student Graduate Work Visa Scheme for Scotland, to enable foreign students, after they graduate from a Scottish college or university, to stay on and look for work in Scotland.
Big business
Foreign students are big business for colleges. As the Scottish Daily Express reported on 20 January, “There is no limit to what universities can charge students from overseas, with some courses costing in excess of £20,000 a year. Fees for those from the rest of the UK are capped at £9,250.”
Over the past eight years, the number of students from the rest of the world increased by 65 per cent, from the rest of the UK by 24 per cent, and from Scotland by just 19 per cent.
Grown
By 2021/22, Scotland’s student roll had grown to 301,230: 61 per cent were Scottish residents, 28 per cent from the rest of the world and 11 per cent from the rest of the UK.
Notably more than one in 15 students in Scotland come from China, more than from Edinburgh. The number of Chinese students has grown from 7,500 eight years ago, to over 20,800 reported in 2021/22.
‘The scheme would make it harder for indigenous Scottish students to get college and university places.’
A Graduate Work Visa Scheme as envisaged would attract even more foreign students to Scottish colleges and universities. The resulting increase in applications would make it even harder for indigenous Scottish students to get places. Such a scheme would also mean that Scottish graduates would face tens of thousands more competitors for the limited number of graduate jobs.
And yet Swinney and his SNP government overlook that immigration policy is not a devolved power, no matter how much they would wish it to be so. A SNP MP has even submitted a Private Members’ Bill to that effect for this Westminster parliamentary session! They might be better occupied concentrating on those many failing services and polices they are responsible for.