By Ann Törnkvist. Sweden could become more attractive to non-EU foreign students if it granted them the right to stay in Sweden to look for work after graduation, the Migration Board (Migrationsverket) has suggested in a new report.
Sweden lost more than half of its non-EU foreign students in the year following the 2011 introduction of tuition fees, according to the report. Several other EU countries give students a window of opportunity to find work after graduation. The report recommends that Sweden look into the same option in order not to deprive the Swedish labour market of well-educated employees.
“If this reform is possible politically speaking, I don’t know,” Migration Board researcher Bernd Parusel told The Local.
"I can't issue a recommendation, just suggest they look into it."
The Migration Board also suggests that a student’s spouse be able to work in Sweden. Some parts of the visa process have already been simplified for students. Read more...

By David Jobbins. More than 1,000 of the 2,600 international students affected when London Metropolitan University was stripped of its ability to sponsor students from outside the European Union (EU) have either completed their courses or have graduated from the university.
Those with more than a year left to complete their studies have been told they will be able to study at London Met until the summer of 2013.
A task force established by Universities Minister David Willetts to mitigate the effect of the UK Border Agency decision in August to revoke the university's highly trusted status, held its final meeting on 15 October.
But officials will continue to try to find a solution for the 2013-14 academic year.
Of the remaining 1,600 or so students, fewer than half of those eligible to do so have re-enrolled at London Met. More than 750 students have either transferred to other institutions or are still considering their options.

ByAlya Mishra. Herguan University in Sunnyvale, California, is the third institution in less than two years to have been raided by US officials and accused of visa fraud by the federal authorities, leaving hundreds of foreign student stranded.
As in the case of Tri Valley University in Sunnyvale, shut down under similar circumstances last year, and the University of Northern Virginia’s Annandale campus, which was raided by immigration officials, the majority of international students are from India. The succession of high-profile cases has highlighted the way in which dubious institutions are able to continue to attract Indian students, and the gaps in regulations that allow students to be duped. On 4 August, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) issued a notice of intent to withdraw accreditation to Herguan University, where Indians comprise 94% of the 450 students enrolled.

By Jessica Shepherd. Universities say they are struggling to navigate 'Kafkaesque' rules governing entry of non-EU students. Universities and colleges are spending millions of pounds to navigate the government's "Kafkaesque" new student visa rules, a committee of MPs has been told. An institution such as the London School of Economics spends £250,000 a year trying to understand regulations governing the entry of non-European Union students, the public accounts committee heard.
Medium-sized colleges have had to recruit more than a dozen members of staff each to ensure they are correctly complying with the rules, which were introduced in 2009 and significantly changed by the coalition last year in an effort to crack down on bogus colleges. MPs are investigating the issue of student visas after a report published in March by the National Audit Office found serious errors in the way the UK Borders Agency (UKBA) implemented the changes. Margaret Hodge, who chairs the committee, said the report was the most shocking account of poor management leading to abuse she had ever seen.
The Guardian has found that scores of genuine students are being left stranded and penniless as bona fide private colleges close down, unable to keep their businesses going with ever more stringent regulations. Simeon Underwood, academic registrar at the LSE, told the MPs his institution was spending at least £250,000 year trying to comply with the rules. Five years ago it was spending £50,000 a year. Non-EU students were a major part of the LSE's student population and it could not afford to take risks when complying with the rules, he said. The consequences of not being able to recruit non-EU students would be enormous, Underwood said, and so the university felt pressured to spend money navigating the rules at a time when ministers wanted higher education to spend less time on administration and more on the quality of the experience students received. Under the rules, institutions must have what is known as highly trusted sponsor status to recruit non-EU students. Underwood said because of the rules LSE had seen applications from south Asia drop by 20%, and Chilean students now thought UK higher education was "no longer open for business". He described the system as Kafkaesque.
Timothy Blake, principal of the London School of English, said his college had to have 16 staff who needed to understand the rules. "The rules have gone too far," Blake told MPs. "Legitimate students are being seriously affected by rules designed to take out bogus students."
The MPs also heard from Jeremy Oppenheim, temporary migration lead for the UKBA, who said the previous system of student visas had been "profoundly unregulated". "We didn't know where students were once they arrived," he said. A report by the Institute of Public Policy Research has claimed that the government's refusal to exclude international students from its drive to reduce net migration is damaging British education and putting at risk £4bn to £6bn a year in benefits to the economy.