Written questions by Philp.

What number of international students by university and by nationality who dropped out of university in the academic year 2024/2025.

The Office for Students (OfS) publishes statistics across different aspects of the student lifecycle by higher education providers to help inform regulatory processes. The Student Outcomes Data Dashboard is accessible here: https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/student-outcomes-data-dashboard/data-dashboard/. The dashboard holds the following indicators:Continuation: the percentage of first degree entrants who continue their studies after 12 months for full-time students, or 24 months for part-time students.Completion: the percentage of first degree entrants who completed their course within 4 years 15 days for full-time students, and within 6 years 15 days for part-time students.The OfS publish breakdowns for non-UK domiciled students for English OfS registered providers. The latest data available are for 2022/23 entrants for continuation rates and 2019/20 entrants for completion rates. The student outcomes dashboard is updated annually and was last released in August 2025. The data can be accessed here:https://www.officeforstudents.org.uk/data-and-analysis/student-outcomes-data-dashboard/get-the-data/.Data on student nationality as opposed to domicile, which is the permanent address of the student immediately prior to study, is not published by the OfS and is not readily available.

What assessment she has made of the potential implications for her policies of potential foreign state ideological influence operating through student networks affiliated to UK universities.

This government is committed to freedom of speech and academic freedom within the law, but those freedoms do not extend to behaviour that constitutes extremist intimidation, harassment and incitement to hatred.The National Security Act 2023 introduced offences of foreign interference which target malign activity carried out for, on behalf of, or intended to benefit, a foreign power.In addition, the Foreign Influence Registration Scheme, applies to UK universities and students. Any person conducting political influence activity at the direction of any foreign country, or being directed by the Russian or Iranian states to conduct activity in the UK, must register.We are committed to ensuring our universities remain free from interference. We announced a new Academic Interference Reporting Route and issued guidance at https://www.gov.uk/guidance/protecting-uk-higher-education-from-foreign-interference to help students and staff identify and escalate issues.We will be investing £3 million to bolster support and advice on foreign interference for the sector.