TweetIn the final part of this series on common misconceptions about international students and visa laws, Nicole Froio looks at whether foreign students want to stay in the UK.
International Students Myth 5: If the PSW exists, all foreign graduates will want to stay
Only about 9% of international graduates applied for the PSW visa in 2009. That’s 38,000 out of 405,810 non-UK students in higher education.
This means that an overwhelming majority – 91% of people who came to study in the UK in 2009 – did not want to stay in the UK at all.
Most foreign graduates want to leave the UK and go back to their foreign countries, so the danger of immigration numbers soaring up is not big. In addition to this most foreign scholarships (like the new Brazilian program Ciências Sem Fronteiras) require that applicants express interest in coming back to their home country with their new skills.
Nicole Froio is Assistant Editor at HMI Education and blogs at www.wordsbynicolefroio.com and tweets at @nicolefroio.