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Breaking the figures down by mission group (including the now disbanded 1994 Group) shows that some have seen a decline in numbers since the coalition came to power in 2010. The current government has introduced tougher visa conditions such as scrapping the automatic right to work in the UK after graduation, leading critics to blame policy for a downturn in students from some countries.

In January, it emerged that in 2012-13 the number of higher education students from outside the European Union in the UK had declined for the first time on record.

The graph was created by Neil Kemp, a visiting fellow at the Institute of Education, University of London, using data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency.