LONDON: UK universities are among the most prestigious in the world, but visa restrictions mean they are now attracting fewer international students — taking a heavy toll on their finances.
The restrictions are compounding problems caused by the UK’s departure from the European Union four years’ ago.
Almost 760,000 foreign students were enrolled in British universities in 2022, making Britain the second most popular destination after the US, in a highly competitive market.
Most come from India, then China and Nigeria.
But last year, the number of student visas fell by 5 percent. Between July and September, student visa applications slumped 16 percent compared to the same period last year.
The decline is a major cause of concern for higher education institutions since foreign students pay far more in fees than British students.
Leo Xui, 20 years old and from China, began studying population and health sciences at University College London in September.
“It’s good for my career,” he said of enrolling abroad. Thinking ahead to when he will return to China, he added: “I will be able to apply for a foreign company.”
His fees for the academic year are £31,000 (37,200 euros). British students attending universities in England have paid a maximum of £9,250 since 2017.
The Labour government, elected in the summer, announced last week that the cap would rise to £9,535 from next year, a move welcomed by universities who have been calling for an increase for years.
Universities UK (UUK), which represents 141 British higher education institutions, warned at its conference in September that funding per student is at its lowest level since 2004.
It estimates that the £9,250 fee is worth less than £6,000 because of inflation, leading to deficits in teaching and research.
“We are all feeling the crunch,” UUK president Sally Mapstone told the conference.
Universities have welcomed more foreign students in a bid to fill budget gaps, to the point where many are financially dependent on them.
According to a parliamentary report, foreign students make up more than half the student body at London’s University of the Arts and Cranfield University, a science and engineering institute just north of the British capital.
The Financial Times reported earlier this year that some universities, including York, have lowered their admission criteria to attract more students from abroad.
But the previous Conservative government, ousted from power in July, complicated the universities’ task by imposing restrictions on student visas as it sought to reduce record levels of regular migration.
It forbade foreign students from bringing family members with them, with a few exceptions, and prevented them from switching to work visas while studying.
In the first four months of 2024, there were 30,000 fewer applications from overseas than in the same period in 2023, according to official statistics.
“These hard numbers confirm our fear that the previous government’s changes have made the UK a less attractive study destination,” said Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute think-tank.
Provost Ian Dunn of Coventry University, where more than a third of the 30,000 students are from overseas said the Tories’ “narrative was very destructive.”
The university had already been impacted by Brexit.
“We had 4,400 students from the European Union. Now we’re probably at 10 percent of that,” he said, adding that the situation was “difficult.”
A lecturer at another English university told AFP that teaching positions as well as courses had been cut.
“The drop in international students has dramatically worsened the crisis for us,” she said on condition of anonymity because she was not authorized to talk to the media.
“Some have preferred to go to Canada, Australia or the Netherlands, where courses are taught in English,” she added.
Coventry University may have found the answer by partnering with institutions overseas to open campuses in several countries, including Egypt, Morocco, India and China.
At the end of their studies, students may not have set foot in the UK but they still “obtain a degree from Coventry University,” said Dunn.
UK universities face funding ‘crunch’ as foreign students go elsewhere
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UK universities face funding ‘crunch’ as foreign students go elsewhere
- From July to September student visa applications slumped 16 percent compared to same period last year
- Decline major cause of concern for higher education institutions as foreign students pay far more than British students
Ecuador’s most-wanted gang leader ‘Fito’ captured
- Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, known as Fito, escaped custody in Ecuador in early 2024
- American prosecutors charged him, in absentia, with seven counts of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms-related crimes
“We have done our part to proceed with Fito’s extradition to the United States, we are awaiting their response,” Daniel Noboa wrote on X.
Drug lord Jose Adolfo Macias Villamar, known as Fito, escaped custody in Ecuador in early 2024 and American prosecutors charged him, in absentia, with seven counts of cocaine distribution, conspiracy and firearms-related crimes, including weapons smuggling.
Macias Villamar’s January 2024 escape resulted in a surge of gang-related violence in Ecuador that lasted days and left about 20 people dead.
Noboa declared a 60-day state of emergency in nearly a third of its provinces to quell the violence, but the drug lord was at-large until Wednesday’s announcement.
The months-long manhunt ended with the president stating Fito was in the custody of special military forces fighting narcotics trafficking.
The army and police reported that he was captured during a 10-hour operation in Manta, a fishing port in western Ecuador considered a stronghold for his gang.
Fito’s hideout evoked scenes from a movie thriller — local media reported that officers lifted a trap door in floor tiles of a luxury home to discover the outlaw hiding in a bunker.
The US Embassy congratulated Quito on the arrest, posting in Spanish on its X account that Washington “supports Ecuador in its efforts to combat transnational crime for the security of the region.”
Ecuador, once a peaceful haven between the world’s two top cocaine exporters Colombia and Peru, has seen violence erupt in recent years as enemy gangs vie for control and establish ties to Mexican and Colombian cartels.
Macias Villamar is the leader of Los Choneros, the leading criminal gang in a country plagued by organized crime.
Gang wars largely played out inside the country’s prisons, where Macias Villamar wielded immense control.
He had been held since 2011, serving a 34-year sentence for organized crime, drug trafficking and murder.
When he escaped, Macias Villamar was also considered a suspect in ordering the assassination of presidential candidate and anti-corruption crusader Fernando Villavicencio.
In the hours after the drug lord’s escape, prison riots broke out and four police officers were taken hostage, where one was forced to read a threatening message to Noboa.
Armed men wearing balaclavas also took over a television station during a live broadcast, forcing the terrified crew to the ground and firing shots.
Soon after, Noboa announced the country was in a state of “internal armed conflict” and ordered the military and tanks into the streets to “neutralize” the gangs.
US prosecutors allege his gang worked with Mexico’s Sinaloa cartel to control key drug trafficking routes between South America and the United States.
Ecuador’s government had offered a $1 million reward for information leading to his capture.
If convicted, Fito faces life in prison.
Trump officials to give first classified briefing to Congress on Iran strikes
- The classified briefing comes as the Senate is expected to vote this week on a resolution that would require congressional approval if Trump decides to strike Iran again
- Democrats, and some Republicans, have said that the White House overstepped its authority when it failed to seek the advice of Congress
The classified briefing, which was originally scheduled for Tuesday and was delayed, also comes as the Senate is expected to vote this week on a resolution that would require congressional approval if Trump decides to strike Iran again. Democrats, and some Republicans, have said that the White House overstepped its authority when it failed to seek the advice of Congress and they want to know more about the intelligence that Trump relied on when he authorized the attacks.
“Senators deserve full transparency, and the administration has a legal obligation to inform Congress precisely about what is happening,” said Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, who said Tuesday that it was “outrageous” that the Senate and House briefings were postponed. A similar briefing for House members was pushed to Friday.
CIA Director John Ratcliffe, Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth are expected to brief the senators on Thursday. Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard was scheduled to be at the Tuesday briefing, but will not be attending, according to a person familiar with the schedule.
The briefing could be contentious as questions have swirled around Trump’s decision to strike Iran and whether the attacks were successful. A preliminary US intelligence report found this week that Iran’s nuclear program had been set back only a few months, contradicting statements from Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu about the status of Iran’s nuclear facilities, according to two people familiar with the report. The people were not authorized to address the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
On Wednesday, Gabbard and Ratcliffe sent out statements backing Trump’s claims that the facilities were “completely and fully obliterated.” Gabbard posted on social media that “new intelligence confirms what @POTUS has stated numerous times: Iran’s nuclear facilities have been destroyed.”
She said that if the Iranians choose to rebuild the three facilities, it would “likely take years to do.”
Ratcliffe said in a statement from the CIA that Iran’s nuclear program has been “severely damaged” and cited new intelligence “from a historically reliable and accurate source/method that several key Iranian nuclear facilities were destroyed and would have to be rebuilt over the course of years.”
Most Republicans have staunchly defended Trump and hailed the tentative ceasefire he brokered in the Israel-Iran war. House Speaker Mike Johnson even went as far as to question the constitutionality of the War Powers Act, which is intended to give Congress a say in military action.
“The bottom line is the commander in chief is the president, the military reports to the president, and the person empowered to act on the nation’s behalf is the president,” Johnson told reporters.
But some Republicans — including some of Trump’s staunchest supporters — are uncomfortable with the strikes and the potential for US involvement in an extended Middle East conflict.
“I think the speaker needs to review the Constitution,” said Sen. Rand Paul, R-Kentucky “And I think there’s a lot of evidence that our Founding Fathers did not want presidents to unilaterally go to war.”
Paul would not say if he is voting for the resolution by Sen. Tim Kaine, D-Virginia, that would require congressional approval for specific military action in Iran. The resolution is likely to fail as 60 votes would be needed to pass it and Republicans have a 53-47 majority. But Kaine says it’s important to put the Senate on the record.
“You have a debate like this so that the entire American public, whose sons and daughters are in the military and whose lives will be at risk in war, get to see the debate and reach their own conclusion together with the elected officials about whether the mission is worth it or not,” Kaine said.
While he did not seek approval, Trump sent congressional leaders a short letter Monday serving as his official notice of the strikes, two days after the bombs fell.
The letter said that the strike was taken “to advance vital United States national interests, and in collective self-defense of our ally, Israel, by eliminating Iran’s nuclear program.”
Mississippi executes the longest-serving man on the state’s death row for 1976 killing
- Jordan was one of several on the state’s death row who sued the state over its three-drug execution protocol, claiming it is inhumane
PARCHMAN, Mississippi: The longest-serving man on Mississippi’s death row was executed Wednesday, nearly five decades after he kidnapped and killed a bank loan officer’s wife in a violent ransom scheme.
Richard Gerald Jordan, a 79-year-old Vietnam veteran with post-traumatic stress disorder, was put to death by lethal injection at the Mississippi State Penitentiary in Parchman. The time of death was 6:16 p.m.
Jordan was one of several on the state’s death row who sued the state over its three-drug execution protocol, claiming it is inhumane.
The execution was the third in the state in the last 10 years; previously the most recent one was carried out in December 2022.
Jordan’s execution came a day after a man was put to death in Florida, in what is shaping up to be a year with the most executions since 2015.
Jordan, whose final appeals were denied without comment Wednesday afternoon by the US Supreme Court, was sentenced to death in 1976 for killing and kidnapping Edwina Marter.
Mississippi Supreme Court records show that in January of that year, Jordan called the Gulf National Bank in Gulfport and asked to speak with a loan officer. After he was told that Charles Marter could speak to him, he hung up. He then looked up the Marters’ home address in a telephone book and kidnapped Edwina Marter.
According to court records, Jordan took her to a forest and fatally shot her before calling her husband, claiming she was safe and demanding $25,000.
Edwina Marter’s husband and two sons had not planned to attend the execution. Eric Marter, who was 11 when his mother was killed, said beforehand that other family members would attend.
“It should have happened a long time ago,” Eric Marter told The Associated Press before the execution. “I’m not really interested in giving him the benefit of the doubt.”
“He needs to be punished,” Marter said.
As of the beginning of the year, Jordan was one of 22 people sentenced in the 1970s who were still on death row, according to the Death Penalty Information Center.
His execution ended a decades-long court process that included four trials and numerous appeals. On Monday the Supreme Court rejected a petition that argued he was denied due process rights.
“He was never given what for a long time the law has entitled him to, which is a mental health professional that is independent of the prosecution and can assist his defense,” said lawyer Krissy Nobile, director of Mississippi’s Office of Capital Post-Conviction Counsel, who represented Jordan. “Because of that his jury never got to hear about his Vietnam experiences.”
A recent petition asking Gov. Tate Reeves for clemency echoed Nobile’s claim. It said Jordan suffered severe PTSD after serving three back-to-back tours, which could have been a factor in his crime.
“His war service, his war trauma, was considered not relevant in his murder trial,” said Franklin Rosenblatt, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, who wrote the petition on Jordan’s behalf. “We just know so much more than we did 10 years ago, and certainly during Vietnam, about the effect of war trauma on the brain and how that affects ongoing behaviors.”
Marter said he does not buy that argument: “I know what he did. He wanted money, and he couldn’t take her with him. And he — so he did what he did.”
Ukraine, European rights body sign accord for tribunal on Russian aggression
- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset signed the accord in the French city of Strasbourg at the Council’s headquarters
Ukraine and the Council of Europe human rights body signed an agreement on Wednesday forming the basis for a special tribunal intended to bring to justice senior Russian officials for the crime of aggression against Ukraine.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky and Council of Europe Secretary General Alain Berset signed the accord in the French city of Strasbourg at the Council’s headquarters.
“This is truly a very important step. Every war criminal must know there will be justice and that includes Russia. We are now boosting the legal work in a serious way,” Zelensky told the ceremony.
“There is still a long road ahead. Today’s agreement is just the beginning. We must take real steps to make it work. It will take strong political and legal cooperation to make sure every Russian war criminal faces justice, including (President Vladimir) Putin.”
Ukraine has demanded the creation of such a body since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, accusing Russian troops of committing thousands of war crimes. It is also intent on prosecuting Russians for orchestrating the invasion.
The 46-member Council of Europe, set up after World War Two to uphold human rights and the rule of law, approved the tribunal in May, saying it was intended to be complementary to the International Criminal Court and fill legal gaps in prosecutions.
The ICC has issued an arrest warrant against Putin, accusing him of illegally deporting hundreds of children from Ukraine.
US military to create two new border zones, officials say
- A new “National Defense Area” will be created covering about 250 miles (402 km) of the Rio Grande river in Texas
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon will create two new military zones along the border with Mexico, US officials said on Wednesday, a move that allows troops to temporarily detain migrants or trespassers. President Donald Trump’s administration has hailed its actions along the border, including the deployment of active duty troops, as the reason for a sharp decline in crossings by undocumented migrants. Trump made voters’ concerns about immigration a cornerstone of his 2024 re-election bid.
The Pentagon has already created two military zones, but only four people have been temporarily detained on them, a US official said.
A new “National Defense Area” will be created covering about 250 miles (402 km) of the Rio Grande river in Texas and administered as a part of Joint Base San Antonio, according to the Air Force.
The US officials said the other military zone would be administered as a part of Marine Corps Air Station in Yuma, Arizona.
The zones are intended to allow the Trump administration to use troops to detain migrants without invoking the 1807 Insurrection Act that empowers a president to deploy the US military to suppress events such as civil disorder.
As legal deterrents to border crossers, the zones have had mixed results. Federal magistrate judges in New Mexico and Texas dismissed trespassing charges against dozens of migrants caught in the areas on grounds they did not know they were in a restricted military zone.
However, some 120 migrants pleaded guilty to trespassing in the first Texas zone in May and federal prosecutors obtained their first two trespassing convictions for the New Mexico zone on June 18, according to US Attorneys’ Offices in the two states.
Around 11,900 troops are currently on the border.
Illegal border crossings fell to a record low in March after the Biden administration shut down asylum claims in 2024 and Mexico tightened immigration controls.
