TNE surge offsets ongoing drop in foreign student numbers
International student numbers were down for the second year in a row in the United Kingdom – driven by another dramatic fall in overseas students enrolling in postgraduate taught courses, according to new data for the 2024 and 2025 academic year.
The figures released by the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) on Tuesday 27 January 2026 show a 10% drop in entrants from outside the European Union to masters courses and other postgraduate taught programmes and an 8% fall in entrants from EU countries.
Undergraduate numbers held steady and saw a 1% increase in UK and foreign students on first-degree programmes, increasing from 1,897,635 in 2023 and 2024 to 1,920,660 in 2024 and 2025.
TNE the big winner
However, the real winner was the growth of transnational education (TNE) students studying wholly overseas for UK qualifications, with numbers rising by 8% for the second year running.
UK TNE, which includes overseas campuses of British universities and students studying for UK qualifications at foreign universities, grew to 669,950 in 2024 and 2025, narrowing the gap with the number of international students studying in the UK, which fell to 685,565 in 2024 and 2025. In 2022 and 2023, the number of international students coming to the UK reached a record high of 758,865.
Griff Ryan, head of transnational education at Universities UK International, said he expected the total UK TNE population to exceed the number of international students in the UK “once we get our hands on the raw data in the next few weeks” and include “dormant students excluded from the open data published by HESA”.
Ryan predicted a final overall UK TNE tally for 2024 and 2025 closer to the 700,000 mark. In 2023 and 2024, UK TNE students stood at 621,065.
The growth in TNE student numbers is in line with the new British international education strategy and contrasts with the overall 6% fall in foreign students coming to the UK.
Financial losses
The sharp fall in international students in the UK over the last two years will worry university vice-chancellors and their finance chiefs, as overseas students pay much higher tuition fees than home students and help to subsidise teaching UK students, whose tuition fees are fixed by the government.
The biggest changes in international students coming to study at UK universities last year saw entrant numbers from India (-12%), China (-5%), and Nigeria (-33%) falling for the second year in a row.
Enrolments from students in the EU have also been falling steadily since Brexit in 2020 and were down by 16% in 2024 (at 63,000) compared to the previous year and were one-tenth of the size of non-EU international students in the UK. In 2020 and 2021, the UK enrolled 152,930 EU students.
Dr Anne Corbett, senior associate at LSE Consulting, told University World News: “The loss may not be felt in university finance departments as the higher fees make up for some of the shortfall as EU students are now charged full international fees.
“But the decline in EU students weighs on universities as knowledge institutions. The classroom climate, the research and the inter-institutional and personal networks that the EU students bring with them are diminished.”
Student surge from Nepal
Outside Europe, student numbers from Pakistan increased by 5%, and Nepalese students overtook students from the United States to take the fifth spot in the top countries of origin for non-EU entrants to UK higher education.
A total of 17,385 Nepalese students started UK HE courses in 2024 and 2025. This compares with just 1,165 in 2020 and 2021.
HESA recorded enrolments from Nepal rising by 92% last year as more Nepalese students switched study abroad plans from Australia to the UK following changes to visa regulations in Australia.
Dr Vicky Lewis, a UK-based international education consultant, told University World News: “The latest HESA data release reinforces the message that the top sources of international students to the UK have changed significantly since the start of the decade.
“Demand patterns have shifted for a complex range of reasons: from policy changes to growth in provision closer to home.”
Lewis said visa restrictions in Australia and Canada led to a rapid spike in students from Nepal switching to the UK at all levels of study.
“Such fluctuations mean university international recruitment teams need more horizon-scanning and operational agility. They can no longer base their strategies on historical mobility patterns.”
Dr Janet Ilieva, founder and director of Education Insight, said: “While first-degree enrolments are up 1% (+2,755), this stability is entirely propped up by entrants from Nepal, which more than doubled its full-time first-degree students in 2024 and 2025 (+7,930, up 117%).
“If we exclude Nepal, first-degree full-time numbers would be down by 5,175 overall.”
Decline at masters level
The HESA data shows some notable increases led by Pakistan (+1,790), Turkey (+1,035), Bangladesh (+995), and Sri Lanka (+755). However, at the postgraduate taught level, there is a stark decline, as there was the previous year.
Ilieva told University World News: “This is heavily concentrated in a few markets, with Nigeria dropping by 44% (-19,570) and India by 15% (-18,890), highlighting the vulnerability of UK postgraduate recruitment in price-and-policy-sensitive markets.
“The removal of masters’ students’ ability to bring dependents, announced in 2023 and introduced in January 2024, has significantly impacted Nigerian postgraduates alongside currency depreciation.
“Data from 2023 and 2024 shows that 66% of the decline in Nigerian postgraduate students was concentrated in those aged 30 and over,” said Ilieva.
TNE – A ‘long-term commitment’
While TNE enrolments are now within touching distance of international student numbers in the UK, and the government’s new international education strategy emphasises transnational education as a means to help achieve its ambitious £40 billion (US$55 billion) annual export income target by 2030 (from £32.3 billion currently), Lewis had a special message for university chiefs thinking of growing transnational education to get themselves out of financial trouble.
With international student recruitment to the UK unlikely to increase in the foreseeable future, Lewis told University World News: "It is crucial that university leaders don't latch on to TNE naively as a way to fill depleted institutional coffers.
“TNE is a long-term commitment, and risks need to be carefully evaluated. Having said that, TNE – when planned properly – can provide a way to play a positive role in countries looking to expand and internationalise their own higher education systems,” said Lewis.
Reciprocal global partnerships
Charles Sun, founder and managing director of China Education International, which has supported a consortium of Chinese universities building international partnerships since 1999, said the latest HESA data confirms an “accelerated shift in UK international education”.
He said: “The connection between robust TNE operations and institutional financial health has never been clearer.
“As several universities cite the international downturn for poor financial performance, the contrasting stability of TNE income becomes a strategic asset.”
Sun urged universities to “evolve from seeing TNE as an auxiliary activity to treating it as a core pillar of their mission and financial model”, adding: "The previous era of heavy reliance on onshore international student fee income is undergoing a necessary and permanent correction.
“In this new equilibrium, transnational education is no longer just a component of international strategy – it is fast becoming its foundation for financial and strategic resilience. The institutions that will thrive are those that recognise TNE not as a simple export, but as the basis for genuine, reciprocal global partnerships.”
Nic Mitchell is a UK-based freelance journalist and PR consultant specialising in European and international higher education. He blogs at www.delacourcommunications.com.