As part of the United Kingdom’s ramped up clampdown of what it deems “visa abuse,” a handful of universities have shut their doors to applicants from two “high risk” countries in South Asia. At least 9 UK universities are acting out stricter Home Office rules against Pakistan and Bangladesh, according to a Financial Times report published this week.
Despite its decision to red flag Pakistani and Bangladeshi students, the Home Office maintained it “strongly values” foreign students.
“That’s why we’re tightening the rules to ensure those coming here are genuine students and education providers take their responsibilities seriously,” it said, as per the FT report.
UK universities not accepting students from Pakistan and Bangladesh – Report
Among the universities included in the list, the University of Chester has halted student recruitment from Pakistan until autumn 2026, as per Financial Times. As far as the report goes, these suspensions have been attributed to a “recent and unexpected rise in visa refusals.”
Another one is the University of Wolverhampton, which has slashed down its focus on Pakistani and Bangladeshi undergraduate applicants. On the other hand, the University of East London has suspended bringing in students from Pakistan altogether. The University of Sunderland also affirmed its unapologetic stance in seeking to “protect the integrity” of the student visa system, as per the FT report.
Moreover, the Home Office has laid out an action plan for the University of Hertfordshire, enforcing stricter compliance checks. The higher education institution has consequently halted recruiting students from Pakistan and Bangladesh until September 2026. It too blames “long visa processing times,” according to FT.
The Financial Times also viewed a memo, which indicated that Glasgow Caledonian University instructed its staff members in July about the need to make “temporary changes to international student intake,” and so “doing nothing is not an option” in light of the “stringent” rules passed down by the Home Office.
A spokesperson further shared with FT that the university had paused student intake tied to a few programmed for the September batch. The same would resume starting in January.
Similarly, Oxford Brookes cited “visa processing times” to temporarily block Pakistani and Bangladesh student intake for undergraduate courses beginning in January 2026. Application processing would ultimately resume in September.
BPP University is yet another institution bowing down to “risk mitigation” protocols by pausing Pakistani student recruitment for the time being. On top of that, London Metropolitan University also confirmed that it was no longer getting students from Bangladesh. The institution highlighted that Bangladeshi application rejections made for 60% of overall visas the UK had turned down.
How many Pakistani and Bangladeshi student visa applications were rejected in the UK?
These changes come after the steps made as part of the larger UK immigration overhaul. The average student visa refusal rate for Pakistani and Bangladeshi applicants in the year (as of September 2025) was 18% and 22%, respectively, which it a bar significantly above the new limit.
Consequently, both these South Asian countries’ rejected applications make for half of the 23,036 cases the Home Office got rid of during the same time period.
With new changes coming into effect in September, UK universities were put under the impression that they had to ensure that these visa application rejections shouldn’t exceed 5%. This brought the number down from the previous limit which was 10%.
International higher education consultant Vincenzo Raimo told FT, “Even small numbers of problematic cases can threaten universities’ compliance with Home Office thresholds.” However, he also took note of how the student visa crackdown was a severe threat to lower-fee universities’ sustenance, especially since they rely on international student recruitment.
UK immigration scene
Detailing the picture of international students being recruited by UK universities, FT shared a chart citing Home Office data. It showed that while China, India and Nepal the top three countries in Asia in terms of UK university recruitment, there had been a sharp fall in student visa acceptance for Pakistan and Bangladesh since 2023.
The UK’s prime focus at the moment is to reduce net migration, which otherwise hits its lowest level since the pandemic.
Just weeks ago, provisional figures published by the Office for National Statistics showed that net migration had slumped nearly 80% from its peak of 944,000 in the year leading up to March 2023.
Between July 2024 and June 2025, migration added 204,000 people to the UK population, which was down nearly 70% as compared to last year’s number of 650,000.