Labour chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group (APPG) for Students Paul Blomfield has said the government's immigration policy could leave UK universities over-reliant on Chinese student fees, leaving them in a less than "ideal" situation as a result of global tensions with China.
From January 2024, new Government rules will prevent some postgraduate international students from bringing dependents to the UK with them. But there is concern that because Chinese students – who contribute the majority of UK universities' international fees – are considered to be less vulnerable to the policy, universities could become more dependent on the income from China in the coming years.
The proposals are particularly expected to hit students from countries where larger families are common, such as India and Nigeria. Whereas because China introduced a one-child policy in 1979 to slow population growth, people from the country wishing to study in the UK may have fewer dependents and are less likely to be deterred by the policy. The average size of a household in China was 2.77, according to Statista, while statistics from Global Data found the typical household size of an Indian family was 4.44.
Blomfield, Labour MP for Sheffield Central, told PoliticsHome it was not "ideal" for one country to dominate international student numbers in Britain.
