UK student visa applicants face stricter regulations

Foreign citizens applying for a student visa in the UK will have to face stricter entry criteria from 10 February. The new rules are established to limit the ability of foreign students to work in the UK and make it illegal for their dependents to work at all. They will make entry to the UK much more difficult for foreign citizens applying for the UK student visa only as a means of coming to the UK to work illegally.

Before these measures were introduced, it was really easy to apply for a UK student visa. All a foreign citizen had to show was a letter from an approved college or university that was enrolled in a course of study and a voucher in the form of £ 5,000 that had been in their bank account for 30 days. The official letter is very easy to obtain since university officials have no means of verifying whether the person intends to study or not. GBP 5,000 can easily be borrowed and repaid while working illegally in the UK. For these reasons, many people have abused the system over the years. Student visa used to be the easiest way to enter the Study in UK.

The new rules will ensure that, in the first place, all foreign citizens who wish to apply for a UK student visa have a good level of English. They will also limit the time that a student visa holder studying below the first grade or a basic degree course can legally work at 10 per week during the period. Furthermore, student visa holders will not be able to bring their dependents to the UK if they are studying a course of less than 6 months. Also, dependents of UK student visa holders studying at a lower level than undergraduate cannot work at all.

These measures will allow genuine foreign students to benefit from the world known for its high quality education system in the UK and will prevent illegal immigrants from entering the country as fake students. Once a foreign student has completed their course of study and obtained a degree, they can remain in the UK legally by changing visa categories and apply for a highly skilled worker visa or a qualified worker visa in case they have a employer who wants to sponsor them. If they have found a partner in the UK, they can also apply for a marriage visa, a domestic marriage visa or a same-sex couple visa.