Border Agency raids private college in Gateshead

don't kill the goose that lays the golden eggs

The genuine UK education courses recruiting paying and attending students from overseas that is. Get rid of these and half of our universities would have to close down, denying options to home based students as many of the smaller course would become non-viable. This would result in the loss of a major export industry as well, with all the knock ons such as those providing accomodation, shops and entertainment in cities and towns where students come to live.

I can't think of any other industry where the government can talk about limiting its size to an arbitrary amount of business based on putting a cap on the number of students from abroad allowed to study here. If the border agency and education ministry wants to restrict students visas to those with places on courses which have widely recognised quality validations and take steps to ensure that studying on these is the genuine reason they are here that's fine with me. That is all good for brand reputation and quality control anyway. But capping numbers isn't fair, either for students who can afford to come here or for those like myself who make an honest living teaching them.

The reason this is such a thriving international business for the UK is due to the fact that the rest of the world wants to study and communicate using our native English language, to the extent this has become the most widely used means of publication for international readerships and of communication between those with different native languages.

@hohoho

Yes; If you have more than £1,000 on you they can seize it until you prove it wasn't 'proceeds of crime'. It is quite a general power, and the reason for the inverted commas is that proceeds of crme can mean anyone's crime of any type.

Almost any business at all could find its principals arrested on suspicion of *facilitating*, have cash funds seized and the business effectively shut down, because facilitation of serious crime contrary to the Serious Crime Act 2007 does not require any crime actually to have been committed anywhere or any actual intention to assist it - merely the possibility that someone could use you for something anywhere in the world that might be a crime if it were to happen in Britain and that appears on a very long list in a schedule to the Act as amended from time to time (i.e. an entirely arbitrary definition of 'serious crime'). It's real police-state stuff.