Predicting student acceptance numbers is never a precise art, with universities juggling offer numbers, yield rates and shifting government policies and targets. But UCL¡¯s recent miscalculation seems particularly egregious. And its resolution ¨C in week three of the semester ¨C will have consequences for the entire UK higher education sector.

International students who placed their faith ¨C and invested substantial funds ¨C in UCL recently found themselves . Many had waited weeks for the crucial Confirmation of Acceptance for Studies (CAS) document needed to apply for a UK student visa. As deadlines loomed, it transpired that UCL had offered places to too many international students, exceeding the number of CAS documents it is permitted by the Home Office to issue.

This led to hundreds of students being told to defer their studies and to leave the country if they were already here. Some may already have left. But now the UK government and allowed UCL to issue more CAS documents.

But while now technically resolved, this messy situation has put the whole UK sector¡¯s collective reputation in jeopardy.

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shows that around two-thirds of international students actively consider multiple destinations, with more than 60 per cent saying they would change plans if post-study work opportunities or visa factors changed. And there is already growing around UK visa and admissions bottlenecks.

UCL says that its problem arose from ¡°an extraordinary surge in demand¡±, but this year¡¯s debacle makes it less likely that this surge will be repeated in future years ¨C either at UCL or anywhere else in the UK. The media spotlight on the over-recruitment will only increase the sense that the risks and uncertainty of applying to a British university from abroad are growing.

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This is especially problematic when the UK¡¯s policy attitude to international students is actually less hostile than places such as Australia (which has imposed caps and lengthy processing times ¨C although is raising caps for next year), Canada (which has also imposed quotas), and the US (which ahead of introducing tougher vetting on international students¡¯ social media activity). In fact, most education agents think the US is no longer welcoming to international students.

The UK ought to be the prime anglophone destination for international students, but it is far from clear that it is ¨C and May¡¯s announcement that the?duration of the post-study graduate visa?will be cut from two years to 18 months won¡¯t have helped.

Trust is higher education¡¯s most precious currency, but each knee-jerk policy shift and high-profile recruitment failure fuels the impression that the UK¡¯s higher education sector is more focused on cash flow than on delivering a student experience worthy of its global reputation. And this is leading to Germany, Ireland and the Netherlands being seen as increasingly viable alternatives, with less restrictive policies and faster processing for high-demand disciplines (although each of these countries also face political challenges to higher international enrolment, too).

Moreover, that impression is not far off the reality. The market logic that led UCL into this quagmire is straightforward: the more international students enrolled, the more income there is to prop up research and teaching. This has likely prompted a volume of offers that significantly outstrips the university¡¯s CAS allocation ¨C although it has stated this was an anomalous event. Whatever the cause, deregulated competition has created a tragedy of the commons, whereby individual universities pursue short-term gains while the sector as a whole bears the cost when international confidence is shaken.

The Home Office¡¯s granting of extra CAS documents for the stranded UCL students?threatens to exacerbate that tragedy, relieving the immediate problem but increasing the likelihood that other universities will chase student numbers far beyond their CAS quotas in the hope of a similar bailout. And, in doing so, they will further cement the policy and media narratives around the notion of ¡°greedy¡± universities.

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To protect the UK¡¯s status as a top study destination, the government and universities must consider how to balance growth with capacity.

It is tempting to call for sensible caps on recruitment, but the UCL case shows the perils of policy-induced limits. The ceilings on CAS issuances are intended to prevent overcrowding and ensure quality, but while universities already use complex modelling to predict intakes, precise forecasting remains elusive, leading many to make more offers than campus or CAS capacity allows for, in the hope that this will yield a student cohort of the ¡°right¡± size.

Equally, there is a peril that late-stage, reactionary policy interventions induce students to change their minds about studying in the UK, leading universities to significantly under-shoot their recruitment targets, with all the financial problems that entails.

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It is time for a broad rethink of how capacity is assessed, offers managed and student support delivered. Universities and government must work to avert future crises by sharing data in a more timely fashion, setting provisional CAS figures further in advance and creating contingency frameworks for handling exceptional demand.

Even more importantly, we need joined-up communication between policymakers and university leaders in order to improve policy and give universities early sight of any forthcoming changes. This will make it easier to predict how many international students will take up their places and reduce the need to make many more offers than they can accommodate.

If UK universities want to remain magnets for global talent, the government must be clear that the country is open for international students and stop moving the goalposts. In the meantime, universities must put student experience, and our collective reputation, ahead of unchecked expansion.

is head of the School of Media and Communication and reader in cultural geography and communication at the University of Westminster.

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