The Tory peer added: 'You have got two huge assets: one is the prestige of Britain's universities and the ambassadorial role which students who graduate here take with them out into the world wherever they go after graduation.‘And then you have got the huge financial stability that foreign students bring to the universities in this country, enabling them to maintain their standards of excellence.’But Migration Watch UK's chairman Sir Andrew Green said: ‘Nobody is against genuine students who return home but Lord Heseltine has not realised that only one third of non-EU students actually do so.‘The student route has become a massive hole in our immigration system. That is why the Government must stick to their guns on this matter.’
Home Secretary Theresa May is under pressure to reduce 'net migration' - the difference between the number of people leaving Britain and those arriving each yearDavid Cameron has said he is seeking to reduce net migration to the 'tens of thousands' by next year.Last month the Prime Minister announced tougher rules to be imposed on universities and colleges which sponsor international students to study in the UK.From November, the threshold for stripping educational institutions of their 'highly-trusted sponsor' status will be cut, so that they lose it if 10 per cent or more of the individuals they offer places are refused visas, rather than the present 20 per cent.International students are the largest group of migrants from outside the EU counted in the Government's immigration figures.But a poll of 2,111 people found just over one in five – 22 per cent – class overseas students as immigrants, and only the same amount would support a reduction in their numbers.When people are told that students are part of the Government's immigration target, ‘the most common reaction is surprise and even bafflement that international students are classified as immigrants at all,’ according to a report by the British Future think tank and Universities UK, the representative organisation of the country's universities.Almost six out of 10 – 59 per cent - of people say the Government should not reduce the number of international students, even if it makes it harder to reduce immigration numbers. The figure was even higher for Conservative voters, at 66 per cent.Meanwhile three in four – 75 per cent – are in favour of allowing them to stay on and work after they finish their degree, with support rising to 81 per cent for Tory voters.And 60 per cent think international students bring money into the local economy, compared to just 12 per cent who think they are a net drain.Steve Ballinger, director of communications for British Future, said: ‘It is true that people in Britain are concerned about immigration.‘What they're not worried about are international students coming here to study at our universities. The vast majority don't see international students as immigrants at all.‘Trying to get net migration down by targeting international student numbers would be unpopular and would fail to address the public's anxieties about immigration.‘Instead it would cost Britain the widely-recognised benefits that those students bring, both to local economies and to our world-class universities.’