According to a recent poll by the Chartered Association of Business Schools, international student enrollments in UK business schools have significantly decreased since January 2024.
The poll was performed in February of this year and is based on responses from 50 UK business schools, with 80% of them offering January intake programs.
For non-EU international students, 76% of responding institutions reported lower enrollment than the previous year. While EU recruiting remained constant, 41% of schools experienced decreasing enrollment.
India and Nigeria were two locations with significant losses in student recruitment, although declines were reported in many other regions, including Europe, South Asia, and Latin America.
The survey also discovered a gap between postgraduate and undergraduate recruiting.
Recruiting non-EU postgraduates proved more difficult for business schools, with 78% indicating that they fell short of their targets. Of these, 61% were severely below target, while 17% were somewhat below it.
Respondents saw a decline in applications for MBAs and related management Master’s programs, such as the Master of Management.
Meanwhile, EU undergraduates were the most successfully recruited cohort, with 67% of schools reaching or exceeding expectations.
However, no school reported considerably exceeding expectations for any student category in the January 2024 intake.
The fall in applications is partly due to recent government policy changes, which nine out of ten poll respondents said were having a detrimental impact on their school’s capacity to recruit overseas students.
Recent restrictions, such as the UK’s ban on visa dependents, have disproportionately affected female applicants.
Other notable difficulties include visa delays, a drop in MBA program enrollment, and even course cancellations.
Following this, some responding deans expressed concern that other countries offering higher education to international students would be viewed as far more positive and inviting than the United Kingdom.
Additional problems mentioned in the survey included visa procedures, concerns about post-graduation job chances, and the cost of living in the UK.