Scholarships offered to students affected by UK ‘visa brake’

Nine universities have committed to funding postgraduate places for students affected by a “visa brake” that blocked access to UK study.

A new initiative launched by the charity Mosaik Education aims to support those from Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Cameroon after the Home Office suspended study visa applications from these countries earlier this year.

So far, 19 places have been secured for the Mosaik Scholarship across the universities of London, Leicester, Northampton, St Andrews and Salford as well as Cardiff University, King’s College London, Birkbeck, University of London and Aberystwyth University, which is working in collaboration with Higher Ed Partners UK.

Sally Wheeler, vice-chancellor of Birkbeck, said that the institution was “proud to offer funded postgraduate places to students...who would otherwise be excluded from studying at UK universities”. 

Every place will be delivered through online or transnational education (TNE), currently the only viable routes to a UK degree for students from the four affected nations.

The visa brake came into force on 26 March, halting study visa applications from the four countries after the government reported a 470 per cent surge in combined asylum claims between 2021 and 2025.

The sudden suspension severed access to prestigious campus scholarships, including the Chevening Scheme, through which roughly 50 students from these countries pursued postgraduate study each year.

The government’s own impact assessment estimates the brake will reduce overall study visa issuance by about 4,300.

Mosaik has established a Global Response Platform, a sector-wide initiative that connects UK institutions to humanitarian networks working with displaced and crisis-affected students.

“For students in Afghanistan, Myanmar, Sudan and Cameroon, a UK scholarship was one of very few viable ways to continue an education that conflict had already disrupted once,” said Ben Webster, CEO of the charity. “The visa brake closed this route for them. With UK universities teaching over 650,000 students outside the UK, the infrastructure to reach these students has always been there. What was missing was a way for the sector to act on it together.

“This is exactly why we established the Global Response Platform, and these universities have shown that quick, coordinated action is possible and impactful.”