No evidence foreign students are abusing UK graduate visas, review finds
-Migration Advisory Committee says the risks are low, despite Tory claims the route is being exploited

调查发现，没有证据表明外国学生滥用英国毕业生签证
——移民咨询委员会表示，尽管保守党声称这条途径正在被利用，但风险很低


(The Migration Advisory Committee said the graduate visa entitlement should remain in place.)

（移民咨询委员会表示，毕业生签证应继续保留。）
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There is no evidence of widespread abuse of the UK’s graduate visa route, the government’s immigration advisers have concluded, despite repeated claims from senior Conservatives that it is being exploited to enter the jobs market.

英国政府的移民顾问得出结论，没有证据表明英国的毕业生签证途径存在普遍滥用，尽管保守党高层一再声称，这一途径正被利用来进入就业市场。

The Migration Advisory Committee (MAC) said the graduate visa entitlement – allowing international students to work for two or three years after graduating – should remain in place. Members said the risks of abuse were relatively low and were “not undermining” the integrity and quality of the higher education system.

移民咨询委员会表示，毕业生签证的权利——允许国际学生在毕业后工作两到三年——应当保持不变。成员们表示，滥用的风险相对较低，并且“没有破坏”高等教育体系的完整性和质量。

The report’s release has stoked an internal Conservative party row over net migration, with senior rightwing MPs describing it as a “whitewash”.

该报告的发布引发了保守党内部关于净移民的争论，右翼高级议员将其描述为“粉饰”。

Robert Jenrick, a former immigration minister, wrote that the committee’s inquiries were tightly controlled by the commission from James Cleverly, the home secretary.

前移民大臣罗伯特·詹里克写道，委员会的调查受到内政大臣詹姆士·柯维立的委员会的严格控制。

“The MAC’s conclusions have clearly been constrained by the narrow terms of reference deliberately set by the government. If you order white paint, you get a whitewash,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

“移民咨询委员会的结论显然受到政府刻意设定的狭窄职权范围的限制。如果你订购白漆，就会得到粉饰，”他在X上写道。

Neil O’Brien, a Tory MP who is an ally of Jenrick, described the report as a “whitewash” on Substack: “We are pursuing an arbitrary target, and the expansion of universities for their own sake.”

保守党议员尼尔·奥布莱恩是詹里克的盟友，他将这份报告描述为对Substack的“粉饰”：“我们追求的是一个武断的目标，并且大学的扩张是为了它们自身的利益。”

Another Conservative MP said backbenchers were “piling pressure” on Rishi Sunak to ignore the committee’s conclusions.

另一名保守党议员表示，后座议员们正在“不断施加压力”，要求苏纳克无视委员会的结论。
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The government has so far declined to say whether it will accept the MAC recommendations. A source close to the home secretary said he would read the review thoroughly and listen to Prof Brian Bell, the committee’s chair, carefully before he makes any decision. They were due to meet on Tuesday afternoon.

到目前为止，政府拒绝透露是否会接受移民咨询委员的建议。一位与内政大臣关系密切的消息人士表示，在做出任何决定之前，他将仔细阅读这份报告，并听取委员会主席布莱恩·贝尔教授的意见。他们原定于周二下午会面。

The committee’s decision was greeted with relief by university vice-chancellors, who have warned that abolishing the graduate visa would spell financial turmoil for the sector. But higher education leaders said they still feared No 10 could cherrypick elements of the report to justify a further crackdown.

该委员会的决定令大学校长们松了一口气，他们警告称，取消毕业生签证将给该行业带来金融动荡。但高等教育领导人表示，他们仍然担心英国政府可能会挑选报告中的部分内容，为进一步打击提供理由。

University leaders had been told to expect the government’s response in the middle of next week, alongside the publication of the ONS’s net migration figures. But the MAC report in favour of retaining graduate visas may have scuppered plans by ministers to use it as the centrepiece of a fresh crackdown.

大学领导人被告知，政府将在下周中期做出回应，同时英国国家统计局将公布净移民数据。但是，移民咨询委员会支持保留毕业生签证的报告，可能已经破坏了大臣们将其作为新一轮打击行动核心的计划。

Cleverly commissioned the review amid a growing clamour in Tory circles that graduate visas were being abused to gain access to employment.

在保守党圈子里，毕业生签证被滥用以获得就业机会的呼声日益高涨之际，克莱维利委托进行了这项审查。

Last week, Jenrick published a report with the Centre for Policy Studies thinktank that called for the graduate visa to be abolished, claiming it “allowed people to come and work in the gig economy and on very low wages”.

上周，詹里克与智库政策研究中心一起发表了一份报告，呼吁废除毕业生签证，称它“允许人们来这里以极低的工资从事零工经济工作”。

In a forthright response, Bell said: “Our review recommends the graduate route should remain as it is, and is not undermining the quality and integrity of the UK’s higher education system.

在一个直率的回应中，贝尔说：“我们的评估建议毕业生途径应该保持原样，不要破坏英国高等教育体系的质量和完整性。

“The graduate route is a key part of the offer that we make to international students to come and study in the UK. The fees that these students pay helps universities to cover the losses they make in teaching British students and doing research. Without those students, many universities would need to shrink and less research would be done.”

“毕业生途径是我们向来英国学习的国际学生提供的一个关键部分。这些学生支付的费用帮助大学弥补了他们在教授英国学生和从事研究方面的亏空。如果没有这些学生，许多大学将需要缩减规模，开展的研究也会减少。”

The committee said:
1、There is no evidence of widespread abuse specifically for the graduate route. The risks of abuse are relatively low due to the limited number of conditions the route imposes.
2、There is concern about potential exploitation of both student and graduate visa holders due to poor practices by certain agents who recruit students on to courses and may be mis-selling UK higher education, but this is a separate issue from abuse of the rules of the graduate route.
3、114,000 graduate route visas were granted for main applicants in 2023 with a further 30,000 granted for dependants.
4、The use of the graduate route is concentrated among four nationalities: the top four – India, Nigeria, China and Pakistan – account for 70% of all graduate visas with India accounting for more than 40%.
5、Most of those on the graduate route completed postgraduate taught courses.

委员会说：
1、没有证据表明普遍存在针对毕业生途径的滥用行为。由于这条途径所附加的有限条件，滥用的风险相对较低。
2、由于某些中介机构招收学生参加课程的不良做法，可能会不当销售英国高等教育，因此人们担心学生和毕业生签证持有人可能受到利用，但这与滥用毕业生途径的规则是不同的问题。
3、2023年，向主申请人发放了311.4万份毕业生签证，向家属发放了3万份签证。
4、毕业生签证的使用主要集中在四个国家：排名前四的国家——印度、尼日利亚、中国和巴基斯坦——占所有毕业生签证的70%，其中印度占40%以上。
5、大多数使用毕业生途径的人完成了研究生授课的课程。

Graduate visa holders are initially “overrepresented in lower-paid work” but their outcomes improve over time, the report said.

报告称，毕业生签证持有人最初“在低收入工作中所占比例过高”，但随着时间的推移，他们的成果会有所改善。
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The MAC review was unable to assess the risk of overstaying due to a lack of Home Office data.

由于缺乏内政部的数据，移民咨询委员会的审查无法评估逾期居留的风险。

Alex Proudfoot, the chief executive of the representative body Independent Higher Education, said: “We urge the government to swiftly confirm they will follow their experts’ recommendation that the graduate visa be retained in its current form, and commit afresh to working with the education sector to maximise the benefits that international students bring.”

独立高等教育代表机构的首席执行官亚历克斯·普劳德福特表示：“我们敦促政府迅速确认，他们将遵循专家的建议，保留目前的毕业生签证形式，并重新承诺与教育部门合作，最大限度地发挥国际学生带来的好处。”

Tim Bradshaw, the chief executive of the Russell Group of leading research universities, said: “The overall message from the MAC is that the graduate route is achieving its obxtives as set out by the government. We would therefore urge ministers to end the uncertainty and confirm as soon as possible that the route will continue in its entirety.”

领先研究型大学罗素集团的首席执行官蒂姆·布拉德肖表示：“移民咨询委员会传达的总体信息是，毕业生途径正在实现政府设定的目标。因此，我们敦促大臣们结束这种不确定性，并尽快确认这条途径将完整地继续下去。”

In February, Universities UK (UUK) said it would review international student admissions processes after the allegations of “bad practice” by agents recruiting overseas students.

今年2月，英国大学表示，在海外招生中介被指控存在“不良做法”后，他们将审查国际学生的录取程序。

The MAC has recommended the government should establish a mandatory registration system for international recruitment agents, and universities should be required to publish data on their use of agents to “help protect the integrity” of the UK higher education system.

移民咨询委员会建议政府应该建立一个强制性的国际招生代理注册制度，大学应该被要求公布它们使用代理的数据，以“帮助保护英国高等教育体系的完整性”。

The review was launched in March after Cleverly instructed the committee, which gives independent advice to the government, to investigate “any evidence of abuse” of the graduate route, “including the route not being fit for purpose”, and to look at which universities were producing graduates who used the route.

在克莱维利指示这个向政府提供独立建议的委员会调查“任何滥用研究生路线的证据”，“包括该路线不符合目的”，并调查哪些大学培养了使用该路线的毕业生之后，这项审查于3月份启动。

Vivienne Stern, the chief executive of UUK, said: “The MAC’s recommendation that the graduate route should remain on its current terms is extremely important and welcome.

英国联合大学首席执行官维维安·斯特恩表示：“移民咨询委员会关于毕业生途径应保持现有条件的建议非常重要，也受到欢迎。

“The uncertainty caused by the decision to review the visa has been toxic,” she said. “We hope and expect that government now listens to the advice they have been given and provides categorical reassurance that the graduate visa is here to stay.”

“审查签证的决定带来的不确定性是有害的，”她说。“我们希望并期待政府现在听取他们的建议，明确保证毕业生签证将继续存在。”

A government spokesperson said: “We are committed to attracting the best and brightest to study at our world-class universities, whilst preventing abuse of our immigration system, which is why the home secretary commissioned an independent review of the graduate route.

一位政府发言人说：“我们致力于吸引最优秀、最聪明的人到我们的世界级大学学习，同时防止滥用我们的移民制度，这就是为什么内政大臣委托对毕业生提交进行独立审查的原因。
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“We have already taken decisive action to address unsustainable levels of migration and our plans are working, with a 24% drop in visa applications across key routes in the first three months of this year, compared with the same period last year.

“我们已经采取了果断的行动来解决不可持续的移民水平，我们的计划正在发挥作用，今年前三个月主要路线的签证申请与去年同期相比下降了24%。

“We are considering the review’s findings very closely and we will respond fully in due course.”

“我们正在非常仔细地考虑评估结果，并将在适当的时候做出全面回应。”