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A UK Government review of migration has underlined the fact that Cardiff is a main driver of economic growth for Wales, as well as providing a much-needed boost for the country’s university sector.
The report earlier this month by the Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), an independent body, gave wholehearted backing to the view that the number of international students admitted on the Graduate Visa Scheme was vitally important.
Members of MAC (to the surprise of ministers in Whitehall), said the risks of abuse were relatively low and were “not undermining” the integrity and quality of the higher education system.
Unknowingly the review’s findings endorse the central role that Cardiff has in Wales, and how the increasing numbers of international students has emphasised its status.
The Cardiff Capital Region is a major player in providing employment and wealth-creating opportunities.
It has a Gross Value Added (GVA) (a measure of wealth), of more than £25 billion and accounts for at least 51 per cent of the income generated in the Welsh economy.
The desired outcomes in the region from its many programmes of intervention (£734 milion of which is ring-fenced for Metro developments with the remaining £495 million available through a wider investment fund), will have delivered over 20 years 25,000 new jobs, generated an additional £4 billion of private sector investment, and increased GVA by five per cent.
Fees and other wealth generated by international students for universities (among them Cardiff’s) are also crucial, so the findings of the MAC inquiry will be welcomed by those who work in this sector.
Wales provides more courses per capita which are filled by international students than most other comparable parts of the UK and there is a long history of higher-education, so the reaction to the report in the country could be especially supportive.
In 2022 the prestigious Russell Group of universities (which includes Cardiff University [CU]) said that institutions were making a loss of £1,750 a year teaching each home student because tuition fees have remained almost static for over 10 years and did not keep pace with inflation, so they had to turn to foreign students.
Universities say the graduate route is one of the main reasons foreign-student numbers have shot upwards.
Home Office data suggest that those admitted to universities in 2023 showed a 70 per cent increase on 2019, owing to growth in applicants from India, Nigeria and Pakistan.
Most of these new students are taking one-year masters’ courses in subjects such as business and management.
That has helped keep universities in the black at a time when inflation has eaten into the money they receive from domestic students.
Tuition fees for Britons were capped at £9,000 annually in 2012, but are now worth less than £7,000 in real terms.
On average, universities are losing £4,000 a year on every UK undergraduate, and experts believed some may end up pulling out of teaching UK students altogether, to focus entirely on international students.
The jobs that these people take after graduating are usually high-end, and not, as thought, delivering food on a bike.
Within a year, figures show that they are largely earning salaries comparable to those of UK graduates.
Over two years they probably contribute more in tax, National Insurance (NI) and in a charge they pay to use the National Health Service (NHS), than it costs the UK Government to let them stay.
Close to half of workers on graduate visas eventually find an employer who is willing to sponsor a longer stay, and the jobs they land at that point are, once again, similar in pay and responsibility to the work done by British peers.
There could also be an unfortunate knock-on effect for the Private Rental Sector (PRS) (which is a particular driver of economic growth in Wales, Cardiff especially), if their numbers are restricted, as a lot of properties are let to international students.
One Cardiff landlord said: “Around a quarter of my flats are rented to international students, so they’re very important”.
The conclusions of the MAC report are also ‘very important’ – for Cardiff and for Wales…
The memories of our Editor, Welshman Phil Parry’s astonishing decades-long award-winning career in journalism (during which he has reported numerous stories which may be problematic for politicians) as he was gripped by the rare disabling condition Hereditary Spastic Paraplegia (HSP), have been released in a major book ‘A GOOD STORY’. Order it now
Regrettably publication of another book, however, was refused.
Tomorrow – more crucial facts; how in the coverage today about a Welsh Government minister being sacked over an alleged ‘leak’, it is assumed that ‘leaking’ facts is a BAD thing, when sometimes it ISN’T!
