In an open letter to the Financial Times, senior figures – including John Fallon, CEO of Pearson, Baroness Lane-Fox of Soho and Simon Collins, UK Chairman and Senior Partner of KPMG – also said that there should be more opportunities for qualified international graduates to remain in the UK.
The letter comes ahead of a new report, due to be published tomorrow by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Migration, looking at the how visa changes have impacted local business, universities and international students.
According to an ICM poll, cited in the letter, 75 per cent of people think that international students should be allowed to stay and work in the UK after graduating from our universities.
However, currently, foreign students are counted in the immigration figures, meaning they feature in the Conservative's pledge to cut net migration to below 100,000. This is despite the fact that, according to Universities UK, international students contribute £7 billion a year to the UK economy.
