Restricting overseas graduate work visas for the coming academic year would create an “unnecessary financial crisis” in the UK sector, according to the chair of the government’s influential Migration Advisory Committee.

Ministers are expected to publish a new White Paper laying out their plan for immigration after the local elections, with some in the sector fearing that the graduate route is under threat once more.

The visa, which currently allows international students to stay and work in the country for at least two years after completing their studies, was spared last year after the publication of a report by the MAC into whether it had delivered on its objectives.

Speaking to Times Higher Education on stage at an conference organised by international education company Enroly, Brian Bell, who chairs the MAC, said there was little the sector could do to influence the recommendations of the White Paper, but universities should be better at selling the benefits of the visa to the country.

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“The one thing that I do think universities were quite bad at…is that there was an awful lot of universities who just took the graduate route to be something they got as a free little present and didn’t think they had to do anything about it,” he said.

Bell, a professor of economics at King’s College London, said many universities did not take their responsibility to make the graduate route attractive to the rest of the UK seriously – particularly in making sure local employers were aware of it.

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“It’s not the Home Office’s job to advertise visa schemes to the local employers. It should have been the universities who are saying if we can make local employers aware of that, then that will get better employment outcomes for our students, and that will make it harder for the government to think that there are any negative effects of the graduate route.

“That’s something universities should be investing money in because they are getting a benefit from it, and there should be some payback.”

the Home Office wants to close a “loophole” in the visa which allows students to transfer to work visas. When it comes to further potential changes, Bell said that he generally advises ministers not to “do something really bad that harms the sector or the businesses that you’re talking about for no real benefit”.

If there were to be any restrictions to the graduate route, he added that he would strongly advise introducing them for a future cohort of new entrants, rather than immediately, which would cause many applicants for 2025-26 to go elsewhere.

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“All of a sudden, you’ve created an unnecessary financial crisis in a number of universities, whereas if you gave them the time and said we are changing the rules, but it would be for the 2026 entry cohort, at least universities can adapt and work out the business model on one side.”

Universities have also warned repeatedly of the further financial damage that reduced overseas student numbers would cause. Bell said policymakers, who are also conducting a review of domestic fees, will need to take a holistic view.

“International students are phenomenally beneficial to universities. If you somehow choke that off or reduce it, that’s not a very sensible policy unless you’ve worked out what you’re doing with domestic fees, with research funding.

“Obviously the government have a review of domestic fees going on…but I think unless you solve that fundamental problem, the reliance on international students is just inevitable.”

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patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com