Advisers to British government: don’t mess with graduate visas

BRITAIN’S GOVERNMENT slaloms between celebrating the international students who prop up its universities and trying to stop their supply. In March it ordered a panel of experts to review a policy that is crucial in attracting foreign bookworms: a visa scheme called the “graduate route”, which permits most foreign students to live and work in Britain for two years after they finish their studies. The Conservative Party, eager to look tough on immigration, seemed to hope that its Migration Advisory Committee (MAC), an independent body, would recommend junking the programme. Instead the MAC’s report, published on May 14th, gives it full-throated support.