UK party proposes blocking foreign nationals from student loans

The proposal follows newly released government data showing foreign nationals borrowed more than £4 billion (US$5.43 billion) in student loans in the 2024-25 academic year, up from £3.24 billion in 2021-22, according to The Telegraph.

At present, students with settled status who have lived in the U.K. for at least three years before starting university can qualify for state-funded student finance.

However, the party’s education spokesperson, Suella Braverman, said this eligibility would be scrapped under a Reform government.

Writing in The Telegraph last week, Braverman argued that “billions of pounds are never repaid”.

She accused some universities of prioritizing immigration over education and claimed the current system disadvantages British students.

“The truth is that too many universities are selling immigration, not education,” she wrote.

The party also intends to end what it describes as preferential treatment for overseas applicants, alleging that some institutions apply lower admission standards to them.

The governing Labour Party has already sought to address abuse within parts of the student loan system, particularly in franchised higher education programs.

Investigations last year indicated that some individuals, including foreign nationals, enrolled in courses primarily to access maintenance loans, then failed to attend.

In 2023 and 2024, the Government Internal Audit Agency, National Audit Office and Public Accounts Committee all raised concerns about abuse, unethical behavior and fraud. Without the necessary guardrails, or a funding settlement that put universities on a sound financial footing, in some institutions the system has become a breeding ground for abuse, unethical behavior and fraud, according to Angela Evans Smith, the Minister of State (Minister for Skills) in the U.K. Department for Education.

“Earlier this month, I was made aware that there is a disproportionately large number of Romanian students settled in the U.K. who receive student funding from the Student Loans Company. Investigative work undertaken by the Student Loans Company suggests organized exploitation both of Romanian students and of the U.K. taxpayer,” she wrote in a statement published on the website of the U.K. Parliament in March this year.

Earlier in April, Braverman raised concerns in parliament about what she described as record levels of fraudulent student loan claims by foreign students, arguing the issue imposes unnecessary costs on taxpayers.

In response, Josh MacAlister, Minister for Children and Families, said the government treats the matter “extremely seriously,” but attributed the current problems to policies introduced under previous Conservative administrations, in which Braverman served, as reported by Times Higher Education (THE).

Since taking on the education brief for Reform U.K. in February, Braverman has also criticized universities more broadly, pointing to average graduate debt levels of around £50,000 and accusing institutions of failing young people, according to THE.

Data released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency in January show that more than 2.8 million international students were enrolled at U.K. higher education providers in the 2024/25 academic year, 1% fewer than the previous year.

The total number of undergraduate students increased by 1% to over 2 million, while the total number of postgraduate students fell by 6% to 796,550. The number of U.K. students rose by less than 1%, while the number of international students fell by 6%.