Speaking at EnrolyCon 2026 in London, representatives from the University of East London, Edinburgh Napier University and Cardiff Metropolitan University described a sector grappling with unpredictable visa outcomes, mounting affordability concerns and growing divergence in how universities manage international admissions.
For Naomi Graham of Edinburgh Napier University, demand remains relatively stable, but converting applicants into enrolled students has become far less predictable.
The university’s June intake deposits are currently ahead of last year, she said, but uncertainty remains around how many students will ultimately progress through the admissions pipeline.
“We are seeing the continuation of the trends in terms of visa issuances and rejections,” Graham said, adding that Edinburgh Napier had introduced earlier deadlines in response.
While September recruitment currently appears broadly in line with last year’s intake, Graham warned that visa delays were creating significant additional costs for students.
“Students are receiving visas late and they’re not able to travel until the last minute. That cost could be double or triple what they should be paying,” she said.
The affordability challenge was echoed by Stef Walton, director of international at the University of East London, who recently returned from India.
“The key message coming out of India is that it’s 30% more expensive to come to the UK,” Walton said, citing higher visa costs, airfares and currency fluctuations.
According to Walton, agents are increasingly reporting that students are either deferring their studies or considering alternative destinations such as Germany.
At the same time, universities are responding to recruitment and compliance pressures in very different ways.
Graham said agents were becoming increasingly frustrated by what they viewed as inconsistent institutional policies.
The feedback I hear, particularly from agents, is that decisions are being made and they have no idea why
Stef Walton, University of East London
“Everybody’s obviously adapting their strategy, but there’s no consistency,” she said.
“The feedback I hear, particularly from agents, is that decisions are being made and they have no idea why.”
Walton pointed to growing divergence around compliance practices, with some institutions reportedly removing pre-CAS interviews while others introduce additional checks earlier in the recruitment process.
“We’re competing in uncharted waters in an unlevel playing field,” she said.
Walton also warned of more competition within the agency ecosystem, especially in India, sharing insight from her recent trip that larger agencies are encouraging sub-agencies by sharing commission spoils, which is a new development.
“It’s really displacing boutique agents who can’t afford to compete,” Walton said. “There’s a lot of monopoly going on.”
However, speakers suggested the biggest challenge facing the sector may be a lack of shared intelligence around visa outcomes.
Rebecca Lever, chief marketing, communications and student recruitment officer at Cardiff Metropolitan University, said institutions were introducing a range of new measures designed to improve visa success rates, but often without any clear evidence about which interventions were actually working.
“At the moment we’re putting all these extra bits in place, but we don’t know which one of these bits is working,” Lever said.
“Is it full fee deposits? Is it English language requirements? We don’t know, because the data isn’t being shared.”
Lever argued that universities would benefit from earlier warning signs about emerging refusal trends, particularly after many institutions experienced unexpectedly high refusal rates during recent recruitment cycles.
“I think for those of you who have January intakes, you’re all a bit shocked by the amount of visa refusals that were coming through,” Lever said.
Some refusal reasons had also proven difficult for institutions to interpret, making it harder to adjust recruitment strategies quickly.
Rather than reducing scrutiny, Cardiff Met has increasingly moved compliance checks earlier in the student journey.
“We’re putting compliance upstream. We’re putting it earlier in the process rather than later down the line. We’re doing compliance all the way through.”
While additional compliance checks create more work, the speaker argued they can also create valuable opportunities to engage with applicants and agents before enrolment.
The challenge is finding the capacity to do so.
“We need AI to free up some of that time so we can have those meaningful conversations as we’re going through the process,” Lever said.
Despite differing approaches, speakers agreed that universities and regulators ultimately share the same objective: attracting genuine students who can succeed in the UK.
Yet as institutions adapt to changing visa patterns, affordability pressures and heightened scrutiny, many appear to be doing so without a clear view of which interventions are delivering results.
For sector leaders, the answer may lie not in more compliance measures, but in better intelligence.
