For the first time ever, Indian students are likely to outnumber Whites in the top 10 universities in the UK. Last year they Indians had overtaken the Chinese as the largest number of foreign students studying in the UK.

This year compared to 22,620 White students from other countries, 23,900 Indian students have applied for admission and all of them are likely to get admission. Even in the most prestigious universities – Oxford and Cambridge — 7,999 Indian students have applied for admission compared to 7,500 White students. The likelihood of rejection of admission is almost negligible based on the past record of the admission form of the Indian students.

Sir Peter Lampl, the chairman of the Sutton Trust and British Endowment Foundation, has announced that they will not entertain any admission after October. Siddhartha Samar, currently in Cologne but seeking admission in the UK, mentioned that this decision will ensure that most Indian applicants will receive admission offers. “I was earlier in Germany doing my LLM. I moved to the UK for my PhD and am actively pursuing admission at one of the universities,” he said.

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Vivek Reddy, who briefly had been to Toronto, Canada for higher studies withdrew and is vying for an admission in the UK. “I am seeking admission in social anthropology in any university across the UK. But my first preference would be Oxford.” According to Dr Gavan Conlon from the London School of Economics, international students pump in about 10 times more into UK’s economy and take away a lot less.

An added factor why aspirational Asian students, mostly Indian and Chinese are choosing UK for studies is due to the collapse of Canada as a place where students used to get relatively cheaper education. “The rising rents in Canada has really had students rethinking about the choices they made. Now UK, Australia and New Zealand are the options before them. But in terms of quality education UK is the most preferred destination,” says Sakshi Rathore, who too is looking to migrate to the UK from Canada.

Sources say, another record that has been set this time around is that 1.48 lakh visas have been granted to Indian students to the UK. This is about 21,000 more than the number of students who applied for admission in 2022, when Indian nationals received 127,731 study visas in the year ending September 2022. And if one compares this to the pre-Covid period this increase is being seen as steep. In 2019 only about 34,000 Indian students received visas. Indians also happen to be among the top vis-à-vis the skilled category workers with 56,042 receiving work visas in the year 2022. The figures for the year 2023 are not available though.