Earlier this year I argued that using large non‑refundable deposits to manage immigration compliance risk was immoral and probably unlawful.

That practice loads the cost of the Home Office’s increasingly hostile approach to international education onto individual applicants from Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nigeria and Sri Lanka.

But as refusal rates climb – seemingly to record levels in recent weeks – universities are looking for ways to stay below the threshold.

According to the FT, universities have been revoking offers en masse, such that applicants never get far enough for UKVI to refuse them.

In the first half of 2026, 10.5 per cent of study visa applications to the UK were withdrawn, up from 2.3 per cent in the same period last year and 0.4 per cent in 2023.

For Pakistan the figure was 40.9 per cent, up from 3 per cent, for Bangladesh 23.5 per cent, and for Nigeria 22.7 per cent.

A student can only apply for a visa once they hold an offer, so when the offer goes the application goes too – and universities told the paper that revoked offers are the main driver.

Around 15 universities are thought to have stopped recruiting from Pakistan altogether.

Rate expectations

For Basic Compliance Assessments (BCAs) applied for on or after 1 June, a sponsor’s visa refusal rate has to stay below 5 per cent, down from 10 per cent.

Home Office refusals of study visas doubled in the first half of 2026 compared with the same period in 2025. Enroly’s data suggests almost half of universities are already above the new threshold.

Universities UK International’s Jamie Arrowsmith told the FT that many refusals:

…appear to rest on flawed, inconsistent and highly subjective reasoning, forcing universities to withdraw offers at scale to avoid breaching compliance thresholds.

If a university withdraws a student’s CAS before UKVI decides the visa application, that CAS is excluded from the BCA refusal‑rate calculation.

A Reddit commenter who says they work in immigration compliance at a UK university told a worried applicant that many universities now give a CAS a fixed lifespan “because they want that visa outcome fast in order to factor it into their visa refusal rate”, and that a CAS can be cancelled even after the visa application has gone in.

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