Studying in Glasgow is often portrayed as an exciting opportunity that offers unique experiences and an environment buzzing with students from many different walks of life. The city attracts many international students who make up a core part of the student body – 42% in the 2025-26 academic year.
However, for many of these students, challenges arising from their student visa restrictions and uncertainty around life after graduation can overshadow important aspects of their university experience.
The Glasgow Guardian spoke to two international students – Maria* and Mario* – about their experience and difficulties they have faced as student visa holders.
Living independently is viewed as an exciting and fulfilling part of university life. After first year, many students independently search for rented accommodation. For most, this presents challenges such as location, affordability, and even compatibility with flatmates to consider.
But for many student visa holders, this already testing task becomes more stressful. Mario and Maria both highlighted accommodation as a primary concern for international students.
Mario described his process of seeking accommodation through the University, explaining that they are obligated to provide accommodation for the whole duration of his Postgraduate studies. However, he said the experience was more turbulent than expected. The accommodation contract offered by the University was due to end on New Year’s Eve, while his studies concluded a couple of weeks later. Mario said he felt that the University failed to consider that the gap in his contract could leave him homeless or forced to find an expensive short-term solution.
He was told by the University that new students would arrive on 8 January and they needed time to prepare for them. Mario raised his concerns with multiple staff, none of whom offered a solution. He described the process as “poor” and “non-supportive”.
Maria agreed that accommodation support services could better assist students like herself and Mario in navigating the intricacies of renting in Glasgow without a local support network. While she felt lucky that she had a UK-based guarantor (a common requirement when renting as a student), she expressed concern for other international students who are not as fortunate, and for whom this requirement is an added hurdle to renting.
Mario ultimately moved in with other international students instead of moving forward with the university accommodation contract, but faced difficulty when some of his flatmates could not provide a UK-based guarantor.
Mario described feeling obliged to “make [their] application better in other ways”. He and his flatmates paid six months of rent upfront to secure their tenancy.
High demand for student accommodation is a UK-wide issue, with many Purpose Built Student Accommodations marketed towards wealthier international students. However, the demographic of international students is changing to become increasingly price-sensitive. This change is resulting in a market progressively more mismatched to perceived customer demand, intensifying difficulties in finding appropriate accommodation.
Aside from accommodation challenges, both interviewees raised concerns around attendance reporting, particularly through the SafeZone app.
Often featured at events such as the Freshers Fair, the app’s original purpose was to support on-campus safety in a timely manner. However, it is now also used for required visa attendance recording, which has caused privacy and disruptiveness concerns among students.
Both interviewees described stress and difficulty associated with the use of the app to track attendance.
Maria said the app was invasive and bothersome, requiring 24/7 location access. She said this feature drains her phone battery, something that, despite seeming like a minor annoyance, had to become an additional daily consideration. If she instead chooses to manually turn location tracking on, this presents other difficulties as the app does not accurately pick up her location. The precarity of this method of “visa monitoring” (a term which Maria describes as “threatening”) has created ongoing anxiety around penalisation by the University. Maria said she has received threats of Home Office notification and visa revocation due to alleged lack of attendance. Maria said she does not believe that the University cares for the wellbeing of her and her peers, or the anxieties they face. She compared the app to “Life360”, saying it restricts her from living a mature and independent life.
Mario also described issues with attendance monitoring that was not undertaken through SafeZone. Over summer, while working independently on his dissertation, he was required to complete engagement forms to be authorised by his supervisor. Issues ensued when his supervisor took annual leave and could not approve the reports. He said that when these reports were missed, the University’s first course of action was to send him an email that threatened they would contact UK Visas and Immigration.
“If I’m doing one thing right, it’s this”, said Mario. “I am actively engaging.” He described this as a huge stressor during an already academically demanding period.
Mario said he was extremely proactive in fixing this issue, contacting the University’s Student Immigration Hub continuously. He recounted prolonged periods of waiting for responses to the Incident Forms and described the team as “impossible to meet”. Mario was eventually sent an apology, however, he still felt the University brushed off his concerns.
He said he wished for “more staff and faster responses” to improve support, resolve issues sooner, and save students time and anxiety.
Maria said she felt the University’s systems were unsupportive to international students when it came to securing the visas required to study in the UK. While visa applications form part of the university registration process, she felt there was little visible support, describing an attitude of “that’s your problem”.
Maria also expressed concern that some lecturers and staff were “less open to help when it comes to language issues”. She described struggles with certain vocabulary or concepts, and said that at times, requests for clearer pronunciation had been misinterpreted as a lack of engagement.
Both Maria and Mario also shared concerns about their prospects after graduation due to restrictions tied to their visa statuses.
In 2025, the UK government tightened Migration and Visa laws, which reduced the Graduate-route visa’s duration from 24 months to 18 months, restricting the time graduates have to find employment after their course.
Mario expressed concern that changing migration policies and an increasingly tumultuous political climate could jeopardise his future plans to pursue a PhD in the UK following the successful completion of his current course.
He said that while his international status does come with burdens, it also provided motivation to “try harder and do more”, adding “for the long-term it will benefit me, but for now it is stressful”.
Maria also expressed worry about her visa status post-graduation, and questioned what options she could access on a practical level. She said financial burdens were a key concern as her visa placed limitations on how much she can work during her degree. While she acknowledged that visa regulations are set by the Home Office, she said she wishes the university was more hands-on in supporting international students to understand the immigration process. Maria believes that support would likely be provided if requested, but said she feels the University “assume [students] have all of this handled”, so don’t treat it as an area they should address.
Despite the issues they described, Mario and Maria also highlighted many positives about their overall experience at the University. These included connections with staff and the supportive student community.
Both acknowledged that many issues they face stem from tightening of immigration rules by the UK government– an area outside the University’s control.
However, they still felt that the University could do more to address factors that impact the international student experience, including understaffing of Help Desks and support they feel is inadequate.
Maria emphasised the critical support networks that international students are far from when they are in Glasgow. “It is the University’s responsibility to be that family”, she said.
*names changed for privacy
