# News Talks: Is MRes recruitment exploiting UK international student visa rules?

Page: https://stenobird.com/podcast/campus-talks-by-times-higher-education-441702/news-talks-is-mres-recruitment-exploiting-uk-international-student-visa-rules
Text version: https://stenobird.com/podcast/campus-talks-by-times-higher-education-441702/news-talks-is-mres-recruitment-exploiting-uk-international-student-visa-rules.md
Podcast: [Campus Talks by Times Higher Education](https://stenobird.com/podcast/campus-talks-by-times-higher-education-441702)
Published: 2026-02-19T05:00:00+00:00
Episode link: https://timeshighered.podbean.com/e/news-talks-are-universities-exploiting-uk-international-student-visa-rules/
Audio file: https://mcdn.podbean.com/mf/web/vk85s2m5bfcauw7z/News_talks_episode_2_FULL8u3pk.mp3
Processing state: not_requested
JSON: https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/campus-talks-by-times-higher-education-441702/episodes/news-talks-is-mres-recruitment-exploiting-uk-international-student-visa-rules
Duration seconds: 1059

## Resource

The number of international students enrolled on masters by research (MRes) courses more than doubled in the year after the government introduced a ban on dependent visas for other courses, new figures revealed this week. Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) data obtained by Times Higher Education show that there were 6,085 non-UK-domiciled students enrolled on MRes courses in the 2024-25 academic year – up from 2,485 in 2023-24. This leaves the institutions behind such rises open to accusations of playing the system and using MRes courses as a way to circumvent the government’s visa rules. On this episode of News Talks, Miranda Prynne speaks to Times Higher Education deputy news editor Helen Packer, who has been covering the story, to find out what lies behind the rising MRes numbers, what the institutions driving the growth have said and the reaction from politicians and other sector leaders.

## Actions

- request_transcript: `POST https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/campus-talks-by-times-higher-education-441702/episodes/news-talks-is-mres-recruitment-exploiting-uk-international-student-visa-rules/transcription-requests` — Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode.
- read_markdown: `GET https://stenobird.com/podcast/campus-talks-by-times-higher-education-441702/news-talks-is-mres-recruitment-exploiting-uk-international-student-visa-rules.md` — Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource.

A page view does not enqueue transcription. Agents should invoke `request_transcript` explicitly when they need this episode processed.

## Transcript

Full transcripts are not published on public pages unless there is a clear rights basis.