Article
University College London isn’t a budget carrier, but it just learned the cost of overbooking.
Originally posted on LinkedIn on October 6, 2025.
University College London isn’t a budget carrier, but it just learned the cost of overbooking. Extra visas have opened the gate; the question is why it got this far. Over the weekend we had headlines about students being told to “take the next flight”. This morning, the Home Office granted additional visas so offer-holders can start as planned, with UCL covering £1,000 in super-priority fees for those affected. Good outcome, messy process. For those not steeped in the jargon: a CAS is the sponsorship document a university must issue before an overseas student can get a UK Student visa. UCL admitted it had overshot its Home Office allocation - hundreds of international students, many already out of pocket on flights and deposits, suddenly had no way to start on time - until today’s top-up arrived. Scale matters here. UCL is the UK’s biggest recruiter of international students- about 27,000 in 2023/24, well ahead of the pack. Next up (who knew?) is Hertfordshire at around 19,000. In other words, when UCL sneezes, the whole sector tests positive for rhinovirus 🤧. Financially, UCL sits in the £2 billion-plus income club second only to Oxford. So how does an institution of this heft and experience mis-forecast something as critical as visa sponsorship? Because the system is brittle: hard CAS quotas + optimistic yield models + late-cycle communications = avoidable chaos. Today’s rescue proves the system can flex - when it wants to. The lesson isn’t to bayonet UCL after the armistice; it’s to fix the plumbing so we don’t need ministerial magic next time. That means dynamic, rules-based CAS top-ups with published turnaround times and an escalation route; audited admissions forecasts; automatic remedies when timelines slip; and real-time reporting of CAS issued versus allocation so applicants can plan. Do that, and a surge in demand becomes a success story, not a crisis. The immediate fire is out but the building code needs rewriting. If the UK wants to stay competitive for global talent, predictability has to be part of the offer. #UCL #InternationalStudents #StudentVisa #CAS #HigherEducation #UKHE #UKVI #InternationalRecruitment Footnotes 1. BPP actually pips Hertfordshire on international headcount (yes, it’s a university, private but OfS-registered so it counts). 2. UCL only edges Cambridge on income if you drop Cambridge University Press & Assessment; include the presses and Cambridge presses ahead.