Britain's best universities are renowned as among the greatest in the world.
They represent four of the globe's top 10 institutions, according to the QS World Rankings. That's the same return as the US - a country five times bigger than Britain.
But a look away from the very top paints a different picture entirely. Between 11th and 100th place worldwide sit just 11 more. And of all the universities in the UK, more than 90 per cent fail to crack the top 100.
In 1992, there were just 46 across the country. Now, that number is 166. That expansion was started by John Major's Government, but skyrocketed under Tony Blair.
In 1992, there were just 46 universities in the country. Now, that number is 166
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Many of those institutions rely on international tuition fees to stay afloat - and every year, the UK dishes out almost 200,000 student visas.
Under Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, the Government pushed to have 600,000 foreign students in Britain by 2030.
That figure was met eight years early.
Gillian Keegan, the then-Education Secretary, said she was "hugely proud" of that total in 2023 - setting her department on a collision course with the Home Office which is still rumbling on today.
Suella Braverman, the then-Home Secretary, warned a year before Keegan's comments that "now is the time to review and constrain numbers".
Every year, the UK dishes out almost 200,000 student visas
PA
But it was only in May this year that the Starmer Government admitted that "a series of problems involving misuse and exploitation of student visas" was unfolding in Britain.
"Visas are used as an entry point for living and working in the UK without any intention to complete the course," his Immigration White Paper said.
Now, GB News has looked into the scale of the crisis, three major developments which experts say made it happen, and why Labour could be powerless to stop it entirely.
A Migration Watch UK researcher told GB News that the first development behind the chaos was the "massive" university expansion under Tony Blair.
It "allowed for the creation of an industry that that was not academically rigorous and not academically selective", he added.
The second was the increase in student fees under David Cameron.
That "created a fairly robust financing system for universities... but also a situation where a lot of universities began recruiting from overseas. It became a lucrative source of income," he said.
The third was the aforementioned 600,000-strong foreign student goal and subsequent retention through the graduate visa route.
"Those three things in tandem created a toxic situation where you opened up universities, you created a financial incentive for them to recruit from overseas, and then you inflated the numbers," the researcher said.
LATEST ON BRITAIN'S MIGRANT CRISIS:
Sir Keir Starmer speaking during a press conference on the Immigration White Paper
PAShadow Education Minister Neil O'Brien told GB News that the numbers, and subsequent "staying-on rates" have "really exploded upwards".
There's also the issue of student visa-holders going on to claim asylum - which the Home Office is moving to clamp down on.
Departmental data shows that 16,000 people who arrived in Britain on student visas applied for asylum in 2024. That's the equivalent of half a year of small boat crossings.
Some 10,000 asylum claimants who had arrived in the UK legally on work or study visas went on to live in taxpayer-funded accommodation, including migrant hotels, in the last year.
"It's a fairly under-discussed problem, even though it's a big one," the researcher at Migration Watch UK told GB News.
"There's a lot of focus on temporary workers, but really, the 'Trojan Horse' issue of universities is being ignored".
Analysis by the think tank said that almost 10 per cent of student visas go to Pakistani nationals - tens of thousands every year.
These, alongside Nigerian and Sri Lankan students, have been earmarked by the Home Office as the nationalities most likely to overstay their student visas and claim asylum in Britain.
Yvette Cooper's department now faces warnings that the nation-based targeting could come too late, thanks to a surge in graduate visas - which have only existed since 2021.
The number of students claiming graduate visas soared by almost 50 per cent to 140,000 last year, with a rejection rate of just 0.6 per cent, Universities UK says.
As a result, students "don't really need to claim asylum any more", Migration Watch told GB News. Typically, they can stay for up to two years while working or seeking employment.
Neil O'Brien warned GB News the numbers had 'exploded upwards'
HOUSE OF COMMONS
That is where the problems start, according to Neil O'Brien. He warned that students effectively disappear off the radar - with the Home Office unable and possibly unwilling to track them down.
He told the People's Channel: "The White Paper suggests that between 30 and 70 per cent of surveyed graduate visa holders in employment might not be working in NQF level six or above [equivalent to a Bachelor's degree] occupations. The uncertainty is massive.
"The Government is doing a big White Paper on the subject... But they're not able to produce data about where people are ending up."
The Migration Watch researcher said there was barely any "real desire to get immigration under control" on Whitehall.
"It's completely insane," he added. "It's just a mess."
O'Brien, who has posed nearly 300 written questions since the General Election, added: "The Home Office has a strategy to deliberately not collect data on anything because it doesn't want to have to answer questions.
"If you're a successful person in the Home Office, you end up in counter-terror, which is a big sexy thing that everyone wants to be in.
"The migration bit is an un-sexy backwater... it's just low status and it's not very good."
As such, "there's never been any concerted attempt to grip what the hell's going on on where people end up", he added.
'The Government is doing a big White Paper on the subject... But they're not able to produce data about where people are ending up,' O'Brien said
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His scorn has been echoed by the Centre for Migration Control (CMC), which asked: "Why does the Home Office allow over 120,000 companies to hand out visas? Many of them are simply not in high value sectors.
"Madness. The whole system needs an overhaul."
Unlike the so-called "Boriswave", which the CMC warns will cost taxpayers £35billion by 2028, Britain is still largely in the dark about the knock-on effects of the student visa surge.
Of the limited data which does exist, a Migration Advisory Committee report last year found that more than 60 per cent of people on a graduate visa earned less than £30,000 after 12 months on the scheme.
That has led to Whitehall infighting between the Home Office and Department for Education, according to the FT - which both departments deny exists.
Universities UK, backed by the DfE, argues that slashing graduate visas will cost universities billions of pounds, and could cripple the sector as a whole.
That led to a confrontation with the Home Office.
"We have been tasked by the Prime Minister to bring down net migration and we're trying to do that," one departmental official said.
Whitehall infighting between the Home Office and Department for Education erupted over graduate visas earlier this year - which both departments deny exists
GETTYBut O'Brien told GB News that there were "questions" over what the economic benefit of lower-ranking universities really is to Britain.
"If there ever is any meaningful crackdown on [student visas], that will mean a loss of revenue for some of them.
"But there are questions about what the economic benefit is of these institutions to the UK.
"They're not producing research. They're not intellectual or scientific powerhouses. What actually are they doing for our economy?"
"Universities have to be shaken up and weaned off migration," the Migration Watch researcher said. "But so does the NHS. So does the farming industry. So does the engineering industry. So does the delivery industry."
Neil O'Brien has warned of 'questions' over what economic benefits lower-ranking universities - which take in thousands of foreign students - really bring to Britain
SUBSTACK/NEIL O'BRIEN
O'Brien, however, has offered a proposal to fix the crisis if the Conservatives return to Government.
Labour, he said, has "never attempted to answer the question of what the costs and benefits are of different types of migration of different types of people from different places."
"Will there ever be a concerted effort to get a grip? Yes. Obviously there needs to be," he added.
"If we get in, we need to do a mega Domesday Book of how the system is working, where people are ending up, and a proper cost-benefit analysis - the kind that doesn't exist in this country."
A Government spokesman said: "As our Immigration White Paper makes clear, it is essential that opportunities to study in the UK are only given to individuals who are genuinely here to do so, and that the universities who sponsor those individuals to study here are treating that responsibility with the seriousness it deserves.
"It is also important that those graduates who are allowed to remain in the UK for a temporary period after their studies contribute to our economy at an appropriate level.
"The White Paper sets out our proposed reforms to achieve those goals, as part of our plan to bring net migration down from the record highs reached under the previous administration, and to move on from the approach taken on student visas in recent years, when – as the Home Secretary has said – educational institutions were allowed to substantially expand the number of overseas students without proper compliance checks, and too many people on the graduate visa were allowed to stay in the UK without doing graduate jobs."
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