Specialising in UK Immigration, including Student Visas, Asylum & Human Rights as well as Employment Law and Divorce & Family Law.

The team of solicitors have been practising and highly successful firm for many years and are registered by
Solicitors Regulation Authority.

Thursday, 22 September 2011

Tier 4 (Student Visa) & You...what you need to know

Firstly, we believe that many students will shortly be caught up in the new rules allowing Tier 4 students to only study THREE YEARS below degree level.


The new rules allow a maximum of EIGHT years as a Tier 4 student, with only THREE years below degree level. (Three years from the START of Tier 4)


Tier 4 replaced student visas in March 2009, and so the new Tier 4 rules start counting from March 2009.



SO HOW DOES THAT AFFECT A TIER 4 STUDENT?
Effectively, the new rules start counting from the day that a person was issued a Tier 4 visa AFTER March 2009. This means that each Tier 4 student has to be assessed individually, to work out how LONG they have already been on a course under Level 6, before they would breach the three year maximum.

UKBA when approving an application, will be calculating each individual case, looking at the date the person first was granted Tier 4, and if a students current application is to continue studying below Level 6, and will take the student beyond the maximum three years, that application will be REFUSED.


This means that many students that are on courses now, where their visas do not cover the entire course, are in danger of being refused extensions IF the further extension would take them past three years under Level 6. (When a student runs out of the three year period at Tier 4, they either HAVE to be on a level 6 course, or leave the UK)

So for example of a student became a Tier 4 student in March 2009, and is still on a level 3,4 or 5 course, and they apply for a further visa NOW to continue a level 5 course next year THEY WILL BE REFUSED. (As their three years below degree would be finished). 

If this applies to you, contact us now: 
EMAIL: britishvisas@gmail.com,   CALL / TEXT: 0794047 6082

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