This week
Enroly's end-of-intake figures for September 2026, presented on Friday 23 October, showed CAS issued down 23.7% and visa refusals up 43.5% on September 2025 (source), and The PIE News reported Enroly's refusal rates by nationality, which the public session did not show. The Home Office publishes its own figures for July to September on Thursday 26 November (source). That quarter replaces July to September 2025 in the 12-month refusal rate, which stood at 4.6% in the year to June 2026. The Spotlight asks whether issuing fewer CAS brought refusals down. On Enroly's platform it did not. It also works out what the new quarter does to the sector's 12-month rate: at last year's September refusal rate, 5%.
In other news last week, the University of Liverpool opened its Bengaluru campus with close to 300 students, its first overseas campus in more than 20 years (source). 735 staff at Ulster University, almost a quarter of its workforce, applied for voluntary redundancy against a target of 450 posts, after an operating deficit of £20.2 million in 2025 (source). And the Office for Students published its second TEF consultation, with recruitment limits for the lowest-rated providers, which is in Policy watch. The Autumn Budget is on Wednesday 28 October, the day after this issue, and the Finance Bill that follows it is expected to carry the international student levy.
The numbers
Only 18% of the universities on Enroly's platform issued more CAS for September 2026 than for September 2025 (source). The other 82% issued fewer, with falls ranging from under 1% to 90%, Enroly told its session on Friday 23 October. The universities that grew were up about 15% on average. Across the platform, CAS issued finished 23.7% down, a little better than the 26.9% Enroly reported on Thursday 10 September (source). Takeaway: if you issued the same number of CAS as in September 2025, you did better than four in five universities on the platform.
The PIE News says more than 70% of study visa refusals for UK universities come from seven countries, and that five universities draw over 80% of their international intake from them (source). Nick Cuthbert and Dave Amor's analysis for The PIE News on Tuesday 20 October names India, Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Nepal, Ghana and Sri Lanka, all with refusal rates the article puts above 5% for the year to June 2026. Using HESA's 2024/25 enrolments, the article finds that West of Scotland (95%), East London (94%), Hertfordshire (92%), Coventry (84%) and Ulster (84%) recruit more than 80% of their international students from the seven. Of enrolments from countries with refusal rates under 1%, 67% went to Russell Group universities. The same week, Alex Lock, Head of Immigration Compliance at Anglia Ruskin University, and Mike Strong, Associate Director for Risk, Resilience and Assurance at Birmingham Newman University, wrote that as compliance risk rises "institutions are encouraged to concentrate recruitment in the same established markets" (source). Takeaway: what share of your own intake comes from the seven? The HESA figures The PIE used are public, so anyone can run the same calculation on your university.
China and Nepal were the only top-10 markets on Enroly's platform where CAS issued grew: China by 2.0% and Nepal by 15.5% (source). In September, Enroly had the United States up 18%; it finished 12.3% down. Enroly links Nepal's growth to students turned away by Australia's tougher visa environment, which Issue 23 anticipated. On the Home Office 12-month measure, Nepal was also the only one of the five main South Asian markets where the refusal rate fell, from 7.2% in the year to June 2025 to 4.1% in the year to June 2026 (source). Takeaway: Nepal is the one South Asian market growing with a falling refusal rate. Enroly thinks some of the growth is demand Australia turned away rather than new demand for the UK, so it is worth knowing which your new applicants are.
New Zealand refused more than 2,500 student visas a month from July to September 2026, up from about 800 over the same months a year earlier (source). Its offshore approval rate fell to 74% so far in 2026 from 82% in the first nine months of 2025, Times Higher Education reported on Tuesday 20 October, and only 24% of university-level applications from Bangladesh were approved in September. Its visa director cited doctored bank statements and income tax returns used across several applications. New Zealand says it has not changed its rules. Takeaway: South Asian applicants are being screened harder in New Zealand and the UK at the same time. A student refused in New Zealand in September may be applying to you for January.
Policy watch
The Finance Bill that carries the international student levy is expected shortly after the Autumn Budget on Wednesday 28 October (source). The Department for Education's consultation response of July 2026 says the Finance Bill, "with levy clauses included", is "expected to be introduced shortly after the Budget". The levy is £925 per international student per year from 1 August 2028, and the government intends to exempt the first 220 students at each provider through secondary legislation. The Bill will show whether the clauses have changed since the draft published in July.
The Office for Students proposes cutting recruitment by 10% a year at providers rated "requires improvement" in the new TEF (source). The consultation opened on Thursday 22 October and closes on 28 January 2027. A provider rated "requires improvement" would have to recruit 10% fewer students each year, from the first assessments. A provider rated Bronze in every assessed aspect would be held at its intake in the year the rating is awarded, from the second cycle in 2030/31 or its second assessment if that comes first. The worked example counts undergraduate entrants. The OfS does not say whether international students count towards the limit. It refers to the method behind its outcome and experience indicators and leaves the detail to draft guidance due on 5 November.
The signal
Nigeria is the largest single source of refusals on Enroly's platform. It accounted for 26.7% of them, with Nigerian refusals up about 160% on the year and CAS issued down 43.9% (source). The Home Office figures published in August already showed Nigeria's refusal rate increasing. Nigeria's refusal rate on the adult Student route was 4.2% in the year to June 2025 and 11.7% in the year to June 2026, 3,419 refusals (source).
Enroly puts the gap between Nigerian acceptances and CAS down largely to the naira's devaluation and tighter financial checks (source). The currency explanation is harder to see in 2026. On the annual averages used in Issue 10, a pound cost about ₦790 in 2023 and ₦2,003 in 2025, and about ₦1,790 on Monday 26 October 2026 (source). A year in the UK still costs a Nigerian family more than twice what it did in 2023, and by 26 October 2026 it had fallen by about 10% from the 2025 average.
A slightly stronger naira may have brought in families with less money to spare, whose applications were more likely to fail the financial checks. Or the Home Office may be deciding Nigerian cases differently. The second fits one fact better. Universities issued 44% fewer Nigerian CAS, which, if they screened applicants one by one, should have left the strongest, and the refusal rate still rose. There could be other explanations: more doctored financial evidence in the pool, which New Zealand's officials report in their own applications, including from Nigeria, and acceptances arriving later, leaving less time to prepare documents. The Home Office's immigration statistics do not give refusal reasons by nationality, so public data cannot settle it.
Spotlight · Sector · Fewer CAS, more refusals
Universities on Enroly's platform issued 24% fewer CAS for September 2026. Refusals still rose 44%. The sector's main answer so far to the refusal limit has been to sponsor fewer students, and on this evidence that is not enough.
Much of the sector's response to the new refusal threshold has been to sponsor fewer students. Universities withdrew offers to stay under the 5% limit, as the Financial Times reported on 10 October and Issue 25 covered. Several paused recruitment in Pakistan and Bangladesh, Enroly told The PIE News (source). Alex Lock and Mike Strong describe how it works from inside compliance offices: more screening, more caution in markets where refusals are hard to predict, and withdrawal from markets judged too exposed. All of this rests on one assumption: that a university controls its refusal rate by choosing whom to sponsor.
Enroly's end-of-intake figures are the best test so far of that assumption, and they go against it. On its platform, CAS issued for September 2026 fell 23.7% and refusals rose 43.5% (source). Put the two together and the share of CAS ending in refusal was about 90% higher than in September 2025. Nigeria is the clearest case: universities issued 43.9% fewer Nigerian CAS, and Nigerian refusals rose about 160%. If the cut had removed the weakest applications, the rate should have fallen. It rose. If the cut left a stronger pool, the Home Office is deciding cases differently, and the universities' own screening has not been enough to make up for it. If universities paused whole markets or agents rather than screening each applicant, the pool may be no stronger, and The signal above gives other reasons a rate can rise. Either way, on Enroly's platform fewer CAS did not bring fewer refusals. Even Pakistan, where refusals fell about 20%, cut CAS by 63%, so its rate still roughly doubled.
The table shows two things. First, the late decisions went worse than the early ones. Between Enroly's briefing on Thursday 10 September and the end of the intake, Pakistan's refusal rate roughly doubled and Bangladesh's more than doubled. Second, by the end of the intake Enroly's rates for Ghana, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh were well above the Home Office's 12-month rates for those markets, Pakistan's was level and India's was below. In three of the hardest markets, the universities on the platform finished September with higher refusal rates than the sector ran over the whole year to June.
Three limits on Enroly's figures. Enroly does not say how many universities are on its platform or what share of UK CAS they issue, so every Enroly figure in this issue describes its clients, not the sector. The universities on the platform can change from one year to the next, which moves the year-on-year figures on its own. And the outcomes are the ones students report, for one intake. Enroly's rate against all CAS issued is 3.7%, the measure behind the 90% figure above. Against the outcomes students have reported it is 4.5%, the measure in the table. Neither is a sponsor's BCA figure, which counts refusals against CAS used over 12 months. The Home Office figures cover every sponsor and show the same rise: 3.0% on the adult Student route in the year to June 2025 and 4.6% in the year to June 2026, the highest for ten years, as Issue 19 reported (source).
The sector figure is now close to 5% because of the shape of the year: the 12-month rate combines two very different periods. From October 2025 to June 2026, 12,908 of 109,092 decisions were refusals, 11.8%, counting grants and refusals only. From July to September 2025, 4,310 of 263,548 were refusals, 1.6% (source). The September quarter holds most of the year's decisions and few of its refusals, so it pulls the average down: in the year to June 2026, from 11.8% to 4.6%. On Thursday 26 November the September quarter of 2025 leaves the window and the September quarter of 2026 takes its place, and this one is smaller. Study visa applications from July to September 2026 were 230,300, against 273,800 a year earlier, 15.9% fewer (source), as Issue 25 reported.
Two cases are marked on the chart. If July to September 2026 had the same refusal rate as the same months of 2025, 1.6%, the year to September 2026 comes out at 5%. If the rate rose by about 90%, as Enroly's did, to about 3.1%, the year comes out at 6%. Both assume the Home Office made 15.9% fewer decisions in the quarter, the same fall as applications. If the fall was 10%, the year is 4.8%. If it was 20%, 5.1%. Some September applications are decided in October and count there. And the 5% test applies to each sponsor's own refusals, so the sector figure shows the direction, not whether any one university passes.
The direction is clear, even if the exact level is not. Most of the year's refusals come between October and June, and the large September quarter has hidden them in the annual rate. That cover is now thinner. The next nine months, when January intakes are decided, will set the rate, and on this evidence issuing fewer CAS will not keep it down on its own.
Things to think about this week
How much of your January 2027 intake comes from Nigeria, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Ghana or Sri Lanka? From October 2025 to June 2026, 11.8% of study visa decisions were refusals, counting grants and refusals only.
Is your 2027 Nigeria forecast built on acceptances or on CAS? On Enroly's platform, Nigerian acceptances rose 1.6% while CAS issued fell 43.9%. An acceptance commits the student to very little. A CAS commits you.
Did your acceptances arrive later than in 2025? Enroly's did: 30% were in by the end of June, against about 41% a year earlier, and 14% came in September, against about 5%. If January follows the same pattern, when do you need to start issuing CAS?
Jobs · Who's hiring
The last word
September 2026 is the first since the refusal threshold moved to 5% in June. Every year the September peak makes the sector's annual refusal rate look better than the other nine months would on their own. This year 16% fewer applied in the peak, and Enroly's universities saw more of their intake refused. Until the Home Office counts it on Thursday 26 November, Enroly's figures are the only refusal figures for the quarter in public, and they give us an idea of where we could be heading.
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