Metro mayors urge rethink on international students

A cross-party group of mayors has joined the growing clamour for the government to rethink its policies on international students following a sharp slowdown in the number coming to the United Kingdom, writes Anna Gordon for Financial Times.

In a letter to the Financial Times, seven mayors call for Britain to project a “more open and welcoming message” to overseas students. The letter is signed by four Conservative mayors – Andy Street of the West Midlands, Ben Houchen of the Tees Valley, James Palmer of Cambridgeshire and Peterborough and Tim Bowles of the West of England – as well as three Labour ones: Sadiq Khan of London, Andy Burnham of Greater Manchester and Steve Rotheram of Liverpool.

It is rare for a politically diverse group of mayors to act in concert on such a contentious political issue. They have also sent a letter to the Migration Advisory Committee, the independent agency which advises the government on migration issues. The mayors’ call comes after the Higher Education Policy Institute, a think-tank, recently published research estimating that each year’s intake of overseas students brought £22.6 billion (US$31 billion) of benefits to the economy while imposing only £2.3 billion costs on the public sector.
Full report on the Financial Times site