Bloomsbury Institute suspended from recruiting overseas students

The Home Office has suspended the Bloomsbury Institute’s licence to sponsor international students to study in the UK amid an ongoing investigation.

In a statement, the London-based institution said that it is “engaged in a regulatory review” of its international student sponsor licence with UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI).

“We wish to state clearly and unequivocally that the licence has not been revoked,” the institution said.

Bloomsbury is not permitted to sponsor any new students until the review is complete. International students currently at the institution are permitted to continue their studies during the suspension period.

Bloomsbury’s website states that it is currently closed to international applications for its October 2026 intake.

Although UKVI regularly places some institutions on action plans, signalling the need to improve their compliance processes, these institutions continue to appear on the register and maintain their licence.

The Bloomsbury Institute, which offers law, business and accounting degrees, is not currently listed as on an action plan and does not appear on the register at all.

New rules came into force in June that require higher education providers to meet stricter metrics related to visa refusal, enrolment and course completion rates.

Bloomsbury said the review “relates to historic intakes of sponsored international students and reflects the wider evolution of the compliance landscape across the international student sponsor sector”.

The institution said it is “engaging fully and constructively with UKVI, and we are committed to reaching a resolution that is fair and workable for all parties”.

There were 820 international students enrolled at the Bloomsbury Institute in 2024-25, according to data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.

The institution said that “neither our students nor our staff are being adversely affected by this review” and that their experience “continues entirely as normal”.

A Home Office spokesperson said: “We engage regularly with the education sector and UK universities to support them in ensuring robust recruitment practices.

“Ensuring higher education institutions are compliant with their sponsorship duties is an essential part of making the system both effective and safe from abuse.”

Education agents based in Pakistan have accused the institution of failing to pay their commissions after they recruited students to Bloomsbury. Writing on LinkedIn, one agent said they were planning to take legal action against the institution.

“Our students have graduated or are about to graduate, and they still haven’t disbursed the commissions claiming our students aren’t genuinely recruited,” they write.

“How come a student who has already completed their degree or is about to complete it (after clearance of full [tuition] fees) is non-genuine?”

The institution said that it did not comment on individual commercial arrangements with third-party recruitment agents and stressed that such matters are “entirely separate from, and have no bearing on, the current UKVI sponsor licence review”.

Financial statements for the provider show that it incurred a loss of £3.15 million in 2025, following a £1.02 million loss the previous year.

The latest Home Office register of licensed student sponsors shows that seven universities are currently on UKVI action plans: De Montfort University, Glasgow Caledonian University, London South Bank University (LSBU), the University for the Creative Arts, the University of Essex, the University of Hertfordshire, and the University of Lincoln.

An LSBU spokesperson said that its action plan relates to “isolated issues which we had already taken measures to address ahead of receiving the plan” and that it was working with UKVI to ensure “continued compliance”.

All the other affected universities have been approached for comment.

helen.packer@timeshighereducation.com