Till April 2012 UK was one of the destinations, which has been favourite among International students. According to stats more than 4,00,000 International students was pursuing their higher education in 2012, which is 4 times more than the no of International students presently coming to Canada.
However, after April 2012 the scenario has drastically changed and the no of International students in UK has dropped by huge numbers. The two primary reasons are recession and the post study work visa discontinuation. Recession hit UK at the end of 2008 and since then there are not ample job opportunities available. Most of the International students work part time to manage their monthly expenses, considering the fact that UK is one of the costliest place to survive. And after completing their education, they look out for full time opportunities to earn good and have a stable career. If we talk about International students of Indian origin, most of them take education loan from the banks, which is quite handsome amount for middle class families. Therefore the students like to have the opportunity to stay back for couple of years, earn in currency with higher exchange rates compared to Indian currency and pay back their loan. During the recession while the International students struggled to get jobs, local government thought that the reduced no of foreigners might increase the probability of local people getting employed. Hence the decision has been taken to stop the post study work visa of 2 years. The impact of the decision was quite huge on the interest of the International students choosing UK as their dream destination. This opened the door for the other destinations.
Australia and Canada were the other popular destinations for the Indian students. With higher tuition fees and few unfortunate incidents happening in Australia with the Indian International students recently, Canada is the next choice. In fact Canada is offering exactly what India students want. Tuition fees are considerably lower and part time jobs are easily available. Moreover, post study stay visas are easily available ranging from 8 months to 3 years depending on the duration of the course, after the successful completion of the course.
Despite all these UK was and will remain one of the best destinations for International students because of quality education. British degrees are still of highest quality and the fees are quite affordable. Recent benefits to watch out for:
1. Many UK universities have lowered down their tuition fees or offering partial scholarship to make the tuition fees affordable.
2. Students without or with lower IELTS score can also qualify for Bachelors and Masters degree if they have 60+ and 65+ marks respectively in 12th English exam. Or else they can attend 10+ weeks pre-sessional before joining the degree course.