Fraud curb bars overseas students

One in three foreign students applying to enter Britain is being rejected in a clampdown that experts fear could force the closure of some of the hundreds of universities and colleges that rely on overseas fees.

They believe genuine students are being refused kept out of the country in a drive to cut visa fraud by illegal immigrants at UK universities and language schools.

The Foreign Office has defended the clampdown, insisting that only bogus students are being denied entry but others are sceptical, pointing to recent National Audit Office findings that 24 per cent of the refusals are overturned on appeal.

The findings come after The Observer uncovered a 'degrees-for-sale' scandal in August that revealed cash-strapped British universities are so desperate to attract the lucrative overseas market they are awarding degrees to foreign students who should be failed.

According to UKvisas, the joint Foreign Office-Home Office agency that processes applications, 52,520 requests - almost 30 per cent - for student visas were refused in 2003-2003, a rise of 13,647 over the previous year.

The number of people from outside the European Union arriving in the UK on student visas fell by 14 per cent to 318,630 in 2003, the Home Office statistics show. In addition, figures from the National Audit Office have revealed the refusal rate for student visas is twice that of tourist visas and more than four times that of work visas.

Since the mid-1990s, the number of foreign students coming to Britain has risen from nearly 7,000 to more than 33,000; a rise encouraged by the government in its bid to court the estimated £600 million non-EU students bring into the country.

Acceptance rates of visa applications varied widely across the world but the highest number of refused requests, 14,331, came from South Asia in 2002-2003, while almost half of applications from equatorial Africa were rejected.