The Office for Students (OfS), the regulator of higher education in England, says that the sector is projecting a 22.5% increase in international enrolment in the three years between 2024/25 and 2027/28. The OfS has also indicated that in a "no growth" scenario – where those anticipated gains in enrolment are not realised – nearly six in ten English HEIs would be in deficit by 2028/29.

Growth in international student numbers, in other words, is no longer just a fond ambition. It is a must.

But that growth has been elusive in recent years. Foreign enrolment in UK higher education actually declined by just over -10% between 2022/23 and 2024/25, and the outlook is for continued softening in 2025/26 and into the following academic year as well.

Two recent studies attempt to peer into that future, and they both come back with findings that suggest the UK cannot achieve its growth goal without greater efforts to diversity recruitment across a wider field of sending markets and/or with material changes to policy settings affecting international students.

The first of those comes in the form of an article published in the journal . The study relies on a machine learning analysis that projects Mainland China and Hong Kong, India, and the European Union will account for more than half of international enrolment in the UK by 2030 "despite stagnant or declining counts." "This concentration paradox increases system vulnerability by intensifying reliance on a narrowing set of [source markets]," say the authors.

Lead author Ruth Neville of University College London adds, "With no or limited growth projected for the countries that it most relies on, the UK higher education sector is facing a potential crisis…International student enrolment is fundamentally shifting, and if universities don’t adapt, they will be looking at a serious funding gap by the end of the decade.”

A second, related study – "" – comes from the consultancy Public First. It models the future potential of a wide field of student markets and concludes, "The strongest opportunities combine stability with headroom to grow. We call this the viable zone. Just nine countries fall within it, with the potential to provide around 52,000 additional students across the UK sector – equivalent to 7.3% of the current international intake…These countries typically have fewer dependants, lower visa refusal rates and less competition from any single study destination, alongside rising incomes and growing demand for overseas study."

It concludes that with limited growth opportunities, the UK's future choices boil down to three options:

• "Pursue smaller or less stable international student markets. This requires much greater agility and diversity of recruiting markets, which means taking on more risk, including potentially risking Home Office action.

• "Out-compete the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand for international students. This requires changes to the policy environment to be much more attractive to international students, including changes to UK visa policy.

• "Accept a shrinking university sector. Without growth in international student recruitment, many UK universities will face financial deterioration and, in some cases, market exit."

“Our modelling doesn’t show a future in which international student recruitment continues to grow," explains Jess Lister, Director, Higher Education at Public First. "The countries with real headroom left are mostly the ones whose numbers will swing sharply from one year to the next, with universities playing ‘recruitment whack-a-mole’ and chasing an ever-changing patchwork of less reliable countries. In a world in which higher education is so reliant on international student income to balance the books, this will only further increase the volatility in the sector.”

Does the future hinge on better policy?

Needless to say, there are plenty of assumptions baked into both forecasts, including that growth in the future will more or less look like the growth of the past. There are lots of reasons to think that need not be the case. We are already seeing a significant shift in terms of increased transnational education delivery, for example, and it is reasonable to imagine that individual institutions will adapt their recruitment strategies and pursue new opportunities to gain market share in a more competitive marketplace.

Those forward-looking studies also largely assume that current policy settings will more or less remain as they are today. And this may be the single biggest wild card in the equation.

There is no question that the current political culture in the UK skews toward constraining migration, and that international students remain caught up in that larger public concern.

Opinion analysis released by this month highlights that:

• [As of July 2026], "43% said immigration was an important issue affecting the UK, more than any other topic."
• "Opposition to immigration fell considerably from around 2013 to the early 2020s, but this trend has started to reverse since 2022."

Speaking at the EAIE conference in Glasgow earlier this month, Universities UK International Director Jamie Arrowsmith made the same point, noting that public concern around immigration remains persistently high, even as net migration levels in the UK have been significantly reduced in recent years.

There is, however, a fair bit of nuance in public opinion polling. The Migration Observatory briefing also explains: "A majority of the public said they held positive views of migrants coming to the UK legally for work or for study."

This all indicates there is a job to be done, in the UK and elsewhere, of strengthening the social license for international education. Part of that work means that we find a new way to tell the story of our sector, and, in so doing to demonstrate its value to the communities we serve.

Perhaps more fundamentally, the future scenarios we see reflected in the studies from Public First and UCL also challenge us to ensure our work in international education is well aligned with the priorities of governments, institutions, students, and employers alike. In the end, that is likely to be the best foundation for building or rebuilding the social license on which future policy directions will be based – and how the future of our sector will actually be written.

For additional background, please see:

• "How can we tell the story of international education?"
• "New analysis measures the impact of international students for each UK community and resident"
• "What is happening to student mobility flows between the Global South and Global North?"
• "Universities urged to focus on 'factors they can control' as policy settings depress international student enrolments in the Big Four"