Post-study options

At the same time, the government has been tightening other post-study options. The Graduate route is being shortened, salary thresholds under the Skilled Worker route have risen sharply, and key middle-skill roles are being cut from eligibility.

Many former students who do manage to stay end up in care work or other roles below their qualification level, simply to maintain a legal foothold in the UK.

Layered onto this is a quieter but serious issue: fraud and misuse of study visas. Sami (not his real name), who came to London from India with his two children in January 2023 as dependants of his wife’s master’s place, says agents in India fabricated financial documents for their application. He also claims his wife never intended to study.

While thousands of students arrive with legitimate paperwork and genuine academic plans, cases like Sami’s highlight how hard it is to know how many visas were granted on false pretences. The Home Office tracks detected fraud but does not publish detailed figures, and alleged undetected cases simply disappear into the system.

The new Innovator Founder switching rule is meant to reward genuine student entrepreneurs and keep their talent in the country. But its success will depend not only on tough endorsement standards and case-by-case scrutiny, but also on addressing weaknesses in the front end of the pipeline — where study visas are issued, where agents operate, and where the line between genuine students and opportunistic migrants is sometimes blurred.

Sami’s story, by the numbers

Arrival as dependants
In January 2023, Sami and his two children arrived in the UK from India as dependants of his wife, who had been accepted onto a master’s course in London.
Part of a record wave
They were among the 657,000 people granted student and dependant visas in the year to June 2023 — the highest total since comparable records began in 2006.
India at the top
Nearly 200,000 of those visas (28%) went to Indian nationals, making India the top nationality. Along with Nigeria and China, India accounted for around two-thirds of all student visas.
Alleged fake finances
Sami says agents in India helped prepare fake financial documents to secure the family’s visa approval, and that these were submitted as part of their application to the Home Office.
No real intent to study
According to Sami, his wife never intended to study on the master’s course, using the offer instead as a route to enter and remain in the UK.
Fraud that never shows up in the stats
While the Home Office collects data on detected fraud, it does not publish those figures — and Sami’s case, he says, was never detected, underscoring how the true scale of misuse remains unknown.

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