A London university has been banned from teaching overseas students,
leaving more than 2,000 undergraduates potentially facing deportation.
London Metropolitan University has had its right to sponsor students
from outside the EU revoked, and will no longer be allowed to
authorise visas.
Ministers have concerns over issues such as whether or not students
are working instead of attending courses.
A task force has been set up to help students affected by the decision.
The UK Border Agency said it had "failed to address serious and
systemic failings" identified six months ago.
As well as stopping the university, which has 30,000 students in
total, from accepting new applications, losing the licence could also
affect thousands of existing overseas students at the university.
The National Union of Students (NUS) said it could mean more than
2,000 students being deported within 60 days unless they found another
sponsor.
'Panic and heartbreak'
The university's Highly Trusted Status (HTS) was suspended last month
while the UKBA examined alleged failing, preventing it from being
allowed to recruit overseas students.
Immigration Minister Damian Green said London Metropolitan University
had failed in three particular areas:
More than a quarter of the students sampled were studying at the
university when they had no leave to remain in this country.
A "significant proportion" of checked files found "no proper evidence"
that the mandatory English levels had been reached.
Universities must know that students are turning up for their course
and are not using a student visa to enter the country for work, but
more than half of the records sampled suggested the university "just
didn't know" whether students were turning up for classes or not.
niversity's website on Wednesday read: "The implications of the
revocation are hugely significant and far-reaching, and the university
has already started to deal with these.
Continue reading the main story
Case study
London Met student Lorynn Conklin, from Fresno, California, says: "I
have no idea what I'm going to do now, I'm freaking out.
"I'm a single mum and I had lost my job - which is one reason why I
decided to go back into education. I've sold my car and I'm living on
a couch in my mother's place. I don't have health insurance because I
was planning on starting the course in the UK.
"I will be out of thousands of dollars because of this. I have already
shipped my furniture and now have to pay to ship it back.
"I only have weeks to find a place to live for me and my son, find a
new school and basically start all over again."
"It will be working very closely with the UKBA, Higher Education
Funding Council for England, the NUS and its own students' union.
"Our absolute priority is to our students, both current and
prospective, and the university will meet all its obligations to
them."
Although there have been other suspensions, no other UK university has
been fully stripped of its ability to recruit overseas students.
The NUS has contacted Prime Minister David Cameron and Home Secretary
Theresa May to "express anger at the way that decisions have been made
in recent weeks and to reiterate the potentially catastrophic effects
on higher education as a £12.5bn per year export industry for the UK".
NUS president Liam Burns said: "This decision will create panic and
potential heartbreak for students not just at London Met but also all
around the country.
"This heavy-handed decision makes no sense for students, no sense for
institutions and no sense for the country. This situation and the
botched process by which the decision was arrived at could be avoided
if international students were not included in statistics of permanent
migrants."
Mr Burns added that UKBA "could very easily have said: 'Well London
Met, if you're not capable of taking international students, you're no
longer allowed to recruit any more" - instead of saying to all the
current, legitimate students: 'You now have to leave the country'".
Help for students
Universities Minister David Willetts has announced a task force to
help overseas students affected by the decision, which will include
UKBA and the NUS.
He said: "It is important that genuine students who are affected
through no fault of their own are offered prompt advice and help,
including, if necessary, with finding other institutions at which to
finish their studies."
A UKBA spokesman said it had been working with the university since it
identified failings six months ago, "but the latest audit revealed
problems with 61% of files randomly sampled. Allowing London
Metropolitan University to continue to sponsor and teach international
students was not an option".
"These are problems with one university, not the whole sector. British
universities are among the best in the world - and Britain remains a
top-class destination for top-class international students.
"We are doing everything possible, working with Universities UK, to
assist genuine students that have been affected."
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