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A total of 1,42,848 student visas were granted by the United Kingdom to Indian nationals in June 2023. It registered an increase of 54 per cent (49,883 more visas granted) than June 2022. Indian students made up for one-third of the total sponsored study grants to main applicants, the highest amongst all nationalities.
“Grants to study for Indian nationals have risen markedly since the year ending June 2019 and are now around 7 times higher,” stated an official report released by the Home Office, Government of UK.
“For the year ending June 2023, there were 4,98,626 sponsored study visas that have been granted to main applicants, i.e., 23 per cent more than in the year ending June 2022 and double (+108 per cent) the year ending June 2019, prior to the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic,” it added.
Chinese nationals were the second most common nationality to get sponsored study; i.e. 1,07,670 visas were granted. Chinese and Indian students together comprised half of all sponsored study grants. Nigeria, Pakistan and the United States were in the third, fourth and fifth positions respectively.
Sponsored study visa holders are allowed to bring their partners and children as dependents to the UK. As per the data, 24 per cent of all sponsored study-related visas were granted to dependants of students— 1,54,063 dependant visas were granted.
Out of the total dependant visas, 72 per cent of visas were granted to dependants of students from India and Nigeria. Nigeria has the highest number of dependants with 67,516 followed by India at 43,552. The increase in the number of dependants is reflective of the increase in the number of main applications.
In June 2023, the sponsored study extension visas also nearly doubled (98 per cent) to 66,495. Chinese nationals accounted for two-fifths of the sponsored study extensions, India came second with 9,153 visas making for nearly 14 per cent of the total.
