K-pop, Thai food, anime. The rise of interest in East Asian culture is a sign of a diversifying and more inclusive society.
It’s also a result of deliberate government policy. Billions of pounds are being invested in cultural exports, with South Korea’s government investing nearly £3.6 billion in 2023 alone, Thailand’s “Global Thai Program” offers citizens abroad favourable loans to start restaurants, and Japan has firmly placed its media industry (rivalling both steel and semiconductors) as a core driver of its “New Form of Capitalism.”
These are all bids to increase “soft power,” or global reputation. These countries understand that soft power boosts tourism, increases the likelihood of diplomatic wins (like trade negotiations), and attracts foreign investment. These are all things that this Labour government wants.
Where do international students fit in then?
Soft power
International students are a free source of soft power, benefitting public finance by paying directly into the NHS through the Immigration Health Surcharge (a three year course costing £2,328) and bringing a net benefit of £37.4 billion to the economy.
By taking positive perceptions of the UK back to their home countries or wherever they may go, the UK extends its influence. Students are the future political, cultural and business leaders of tomorrow. Soft power is an investment into the future, in a world of shifting superpowers.
A whopping 58 of 2023’s world leaders (over a quarter of the world’s countries) have been educated in the UK. There are few tools of diplomacy that can rival a foreign prime minister having had a positive experience whilst studying here.
Where we are now
What’s lacking in the conversation is this context, the benefit international students provide to the country as a whole, tied to the importance of student experience.
Soft power is negatively affected if student experience is poor, with negative associations of British institutions flowing abroad. Currently, lobbying on international student experience almost always comes from an angle of recruitment – how we can be more competitive in attracting more people.
This recruitment angle, whether spoken or unspoken, almost always rests upon the primary argument of higher education funding relying on international students. This approach isn’t working. The language around students still uses terms like “markets” to describe groups of people – “the Chinese market” and “cash cow” for example. Phrases like these keep international students within cattle auction terminology and remain too prevalent.
Truly, would universities care as much about international students if their fees were the same as home students?
As a students’ union officer, I know there’s people who genuinely care about international students. They believe that the world is bettered by building community and learning with people from unfamiliar backgrounds, arguing about cultural richness and contributions to world-leading research on campuses.
Unfortunately, these arguments, whilst rhetorically embraced, haven’t translated to policy, otherwise the situation would be different.
The challenges
The requirement of a UK-based guarantor locks students out of renting – even after international students have already proved their finances in visa applications. Some of this is being addressed in amendments in the Renters’ Rights Bill, but concerningly, the bill’s provisions exclude student halls.
Disabled international students are restricted from accessing the Disabled Students’ Allowance, even though they pay to access the NHS. Income from self-employment, gig work and entertainment is banned. Your visa shouldn’t be jeopardised by winning an online photography competition or getting paid for an open mic.
These restrictions also hamper the educational experience. International computer science students are barred from the freelancing projects that would improve hands-on learning and employability. The same could be said with creative writing students publishing and business students engaging in start-ups. Meanwhile, countries like Finland and Ireland understand that encouraging talent to stay to contribute to culture, tech, and business, is a driver of economic growth.
Adding to this, there’s little hope for our brightest students for a path to residency. The Skilled Worker Visa has an income requirement of £38,700 a year. Using the Higher Education Statistics Agency’s most recent figures, the median salary for undergrad graduates is £27,500. Even the highest earning group (medicine and dentistry), has a median of £34,950, both extremely under the income requirement.
This requirement also leads to employers not wanting to hire international graduates at all, knowing they could lose them once their restriction-free Graduate Visa runs out.
And for those who find love, the income requirement to stay with their British partner is strenuous. Only UK-based income is counted, with payslips needing to go back at least 6 months, which can be an impossibility for newly grads.
It was welcome news when Labour scrapped the previous government’s plan to raise the Family Visa requirement to £38,700 a year, but the current £29,000 remains high compared to other countries with no requirements at all – Germany and Australia. And with the current rhetoric about net migration numbers and a lack of consideration for families, there is a concern that this rise could return.
It has to be said that there is little room for visa abuse. There’s a strict evidence and interrogation process for marrying a non-British national, and universities are required to monitor international student class attendance.
Soft power solutions
How does the soft power argument help us fix this?
The goal would be for the government to view our global universities through the same lens that governments view hosting the Olympics. There are benefits to be gained through attracting people, but the longest-lasting benefits come from giving people a positive experience.
Keir Starmer wants to increase the UK’s “global leadership” and to tell the world that it’s “open for business.” Let’s do that by providing a student experience that’s the envy of the world, open for students to experience the best of the UK and to contribute to growth, unrestricted.
Let’s scrap type-of-work restrictions, remove international students from net migration numbers, create viable paths to keep talent here, abolish guarantors for all, and make Disabled Students’ Allowance fairer.
Truthfully, there’s no silver bullet to “winning” any argument.
Soft power doesn’t entirely move us away from framing international students in terms of resource extraction. But by continuing to diversify our arguments, we make it unreasonable to disagree. Any first steps should be welcome. And regardless, I still believe that friendships and cross-communal interaction lead to a better world.
If we rest upon existing arguments and don’t diversify, then the conversation will slip further and further away. By the next election cycle, it will feel too late when international students become too much of a political “liability,” targeted in manifestos for “tough on immigration” electability.
Bumped into Thomas’s Blog!