World's top graduates get new UK visa option

<i>&gt; Home Secretary Priti Patel added: &quot;I am proud to be launching this new and exciting route as part of our points-based immigration system which puts ability and talent first, not where someone comes from.&quot;</i><p>For this visa route to &quot;put ability and talent first&quot;, the policy would have to be designed to look for and accept evidence of those traits in whatever forms are available.<p>But this visa does not place ability and talent first, as most talented people cannot go to Ivy League and equivalent for other reasons, and the visa criteria don&#x27;t accept other evidence of exceptional talent and ability. I have nothing against great universities (I went to one and have a poor family background), but access to wealth, historical family wealth, and factors such as race and country of birth play a big role statistically in who attends the top few.<p>As for &quot;not where someone comes from&quot;, as the article notes the visa is entirely closed to people graduating in the countries of South Asia, Latin America or Africa. Regardless of demonstrable talent, those at the top of the league in the wrong countries don&#x27;t qualify for this &quot;not where someone comes from&quot; visa.<p>In related news yesterday, an official Home Office report concluded &quot;30 years of racist immigration legislation designed to reduce the UK’s non-white population&quot;. <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;uk-news&#x2F;2022&#x2F;may&#x2F;29&#x2F;windrush-scandal-caused-by-30-years-of-racist-immigration-laws-report" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.theguardian.com&#x2F;uk-news&#x2F;2022&#x2F;may&#x2F;29&#x2F;windrush-sca...</a><p>Call me cynical, but I think today&#x27;s announcement is another point on that trend line.

As an aside, I&#x27;m from a so-so third-world country (Nigeria), and the best graduating student from my recent university set got a Gates Cambridge scholarship for a PhD in a science field. She&#x27;s wicked smart and hardworking, and the UK will most likely make better use of her talent compared to my country.<p>It&#x27;s a bit sad (to me) that they limited this opportunity to graduates of the world&#x27;s top universities and excluded disadvantaged&#x2F;poorer countries as a result. But, such is life. I can&#x27;t dictate to foreign countries and voters who or not they should let into their borders.

This policy is 100% voter appeasement and only to score political brownie points. If you graduate from a top Uni you&#x27;ll have no issue getting a Tier 2 sponsorship (which costs less than £1000 per year plus some £200 per case for a company).<p>So whom are these visas for?

Here&#x27;s the list in question: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;government&#x2F;publications&#x2F;high-potential-individual-visa-global-universities-list&#x2F;high-potential-individual-visa-global-universities-list-2021" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.gov.uk&#x2F;government&#x2F;publications&#x2F;high-potential-in...</a><p>According to this list, only six out of the eight Ivy League schools [1] are worth applying to and apparently schools like Waterloo, Lomonosov State, and Les Grandes Ecoles, all of which have turned out some of the most brilliant scientists and mathematicians, aren&#x27;t even worth considering.<p>[1] No Brown or Dartmouth in town.

I never cared for green card&#x2F;visa thing... If I&#x27;m going to uproot my family for a few years I need to know that the path for full immigration and citizenship is well set.

&gt; early in their careers<p>Clicked around for a bit and age does not appear anywhere that I can find. It appears that a 40+ year old person could return to (an eligible) university for a second degree and then make use of this scheme.<p>Perhaps the cohort size is going to be too small for them to care.

&quot;I am proud to be launching this new and exciting route as part of our points-based immigration system which puts ability and talent first, not where someone comes from.&quot;<p>Subtle dig across the Atlantic?

With the UK foreign policy wildly oscillating in the past decade, if I were to take this option - I would do this cautiously. No one wants to move lock stock and barrel to a country to be again facing the prospects of being uprooted because of some new populist policy nulling it.

Yeah, but. Foreign graduates from UK universities are chased out immediately. Unless that’s changed? It was a major plank in the 2014 Scottish referendum platform.

What exactly is the purpose of a visa that doesn&#x27;t require employment and doesn&#x27;t lead to settlement?

&quot;ability&quot;