That thing about the High Potential Individuals Visa University list (updated)

Back in June, when the high potential individual visa scheme had opened, there was more attention to the list of universities that the individuals need to have graduated from in order to get the visa, with its many advantages. I wondered as how sensible this was. Now that we have an update to the list of universities, I remain concerned about the arbitrary nature of the eligibility based on this scheme. This is an update to that blog, and I highlight new issues here.

Using a scheme whereby a university is on the list if it is in the top 50 on two or three global university lists, it’s clear that this prioritizes graduates from a handful of research-intensive universities which are all based in North America, Europe, East Asia and Australia. The Home Office has subscribed to the notion that the people with the highest potential must have been to these universities, an argument that doesn’t hold up even in those favoured areas. Sticking with the notion that the people with the highest potential go to the ‘best’ places, in the US, for example, it is clear that highly selective liberal arts colleges are held in similar esteem or that admissions criteria may have included special considerations for children of alumni or donors. Again, it may be that the people with the highest potential in France may not be attending the only university that makes the top 50 (the grande écoles are not on the list).

I’ve held that the Home Office, in particular, is caught with a problem of drawing exact lines through higher education, not allowing for fuzziness, generating sorities paradoxes. There’s another problem with the Home Office’s list of universities, in that it’s not one list but six. In their logic that the league tables of the ‘best’ 50 global universities, they have to accept that these rankings change. Last week QS offered us their latest one, and there are movements up and down. This is necessary as data changes, but through the years we’ve seen methodology changes too – changes ‘sell’ the rankings – Cambridge was higher than Oxford, it generates a headline.

So the Home Office offers us seven lists: one each for the years in scope for graduates, going back from 2021 to 2016. The Universities on the lists change each year. Maybe not a large amount of change, there are 32 universities are on all seven lists, but there is some; there are 47 universities on the lists in total. Some are new: the University of Queensland and Zhejiang University are only on the 2022 list. Some come and go, PSL is not on the lists for 2019, 2017 and 2016.

2022	2021	2020	2019	2018	2017	2016
			Australian National University	Australian National University (ANU)	Australian National University (ANU)	Australian National University (ANU)
California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)	California Institute of Technology (Caltech)
Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)	Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK)
			Carnegie Mellon University	Carnegie Mellon University	Carnegie Mellon University
Columbia University	Columbia University	Columbia University	Columbia University	Columbia University	Columbia University	Columbia University
Cornell University	Cornell University	Cornell University	Cornell University	Cornell University	Cornell University	Cornell University
Duke University	Duke University	Duke University	Duke University	Duke University	Duke University	Duke University
Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Switzerland)	Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Switzerland)	Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne	Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Switzerland)	Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Switzerland)	Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Switzerland)	Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (EPFL Switzerland)
ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)	ETH Zurich (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology)
Harvard University	Harvard University	Harvard University	Harvard University	Harvard University	Harvard University	Harvard University
			Heidelberg University	Heidelberg University	Heidelberg University	Heidelberg University
			Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology	Hong Kong University of Science and Technology
Johns Hopkins University	Johns Hopkins University	Johns Hopkins University	Johns Hopkins University	Johns Hopkins University	Johns Hopkins University	Johns Hopkins University
Karolinska Institute	Karolinska Institute	Karolinska Institute	Karolinska Institute	Karolinska Institute	Karolinska Institute	Karolinska Institute
Kyoto University	Kyoto University	Kyoto University	Kyoto University	Kyoto University	Kyoto University	Kyoto University
Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)	Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)
McGill University	McGill University	McGill University	McGill University	McGill University	McGill University	McGill University
Nanyang Technological University (NTU)	Nanyang Technological University (NTU)	Nanyang Technological University (NTU)	Nanyang Technological University (NTU)
National University of Singapore	National University of Singapore	National University of Singapore	National University of Singapore	National University of Singapore	National University of Singapore (NUS)	National University of Singapore (NUS)
New York University (NYU)	New York University (NYU)	New York University (NYU)	New York University	New York University	New York University	New York University
Northwestern University	Northwestern University	Northwestern University	Northwestern University	Northwestern University	Northwestern University	Northwestern University
Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University	Paris Sciences et Lettres – PSL Research University		PSL Université Paris (Paris Sciences & Lettres)
Peking University	Peking University	Peking University	Peking University	Peking University	Peking university	Peking University
Princeton University	Princeton University	Princeton University	Princeton University	Princeton University	Princeton University	Princeton University
Stanford University	Stanford University	Stanford University	Stanford University	Stanford University	Stanford University	Stanford University
Technical University of Munich (Technische Universität München)		Technical University of Munich (Technische Universität München)		Technical University of Munich	Technical University of Munich	Technical University of Munich
Tsinghua University	Tsinghua University	Tsinghua University	Tsinghua University	Tsinghua University	Tsinghua University	Tsinghua University
University of British Columbia	University of British Columbia	University of British Columbia	University of British Columbia	University of British Columbia	University of British Columbia	University of British Columbia
University of California, Berkeley	University of California, Berkeley	University of California, Berkeley	University of California, Berkeley	University of California, Berkeley	University of California, Berkeley	University of California, Berkeley
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)	University of California, Los Angeles	University of California, Los Angeles	University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
University of California, San Diego	University of California, San Diego	University of California, San Diego	University of California, San Diego (UCSD)	University of California, San Diego	University of California, San Diego	University of California, San Diego
						University of California, Santa Barbara
University of Chicago	University of Chicago US	University of Chicago	University of Chicago US	University of Chicago US	University of Chicago	University of Chicago
University of Hong Kong	University of Hong Kong	University of Hong Kong	University of Hong Kong	University of Hong Kong	University of Hong Kong (HKU)	University of Hong Kong (HKU)
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign		University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign	University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
University of Melbourne	University of Melbourne	University of Melbourne	University of Melbourne	University of Melbourne	University of Melbourne	University of Melbourne
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor	University of Michigan-Ann Arbor
	University of Munich (LMU Munich)
University of Pennsylvania	University of Pennsylvania	University of Pennsylvania	University of Pennsylvania	University of Pennsylvania	University of Pennsylvania	University of Pennsylvania
University of Queensland
University of Texas at Austin	University of Texas at Austin	University of Texas at Austin	University of Texas at Austin	University of Texas at Austin		University of Texas at Austin
University of Tokyo	University of Tokyo	University of Tokyo	University of Tokyo	University of Tokyo	University of Tokyo	University of Tokyo
University of Toronto	University of Toronto	University of Toronto	University of Toronto	University of Toronto	University of Toronto	University of Toronto
University of Washington	University of Washington	University of Washington	University of Washington	University of Washington	University of Washington	University of Washington
		University of Wisconsin-Madison		University of Wisconsin-Madison	University of Wisconsin-Madison	University of Wisconsin-Madison
		Washington University in St Louis			Washington University in St. Louis
Yale University	Yale University	Yale University	Yale University	Yale University	Yale University	Yale University
Zhejiang University

The problem the Home office generates with its sorities solution is that the year list has to apply to the graduates. For the 37 universities on the 2021 list, individuals are eligible for the visa if (and only if) their qualifications are awarded between 1 November 2021 and 31 October 2022. If your degree from Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München was awarded in October 2021 you are not eligible. UW-Madison graduates from 1 November 2016 to 31 October 2019 and 1 November 2020 to 31 October 2021 can get a visa, others not. It’s particularly bad news for Illinois grads from 2020 to 2021 – that’s the only cohort not eligible. These are arbitrary dates, paying no attention to academic year structures or potentially getting down to the detail on an awarding date. Technische Universität München pops in and out of the list, was it definitely better from 1 November 2020 until 31 October 2021 such that its graduates in those 365 days have higher potential that those in the years either side?

This doesn’t seem sensible. The whole scheme is problematic, prioritizing the places that rich kids go in rich countries, but it’s also weird. Graduates of Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg are only worthy of consideration as high potential individuals if they had their degrees awarded between 1 November 2016 and 31 October 2020.

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