American pensioners enrolling at Scottish universities to secure student visas

American pensioners are enrolling at universities to obtain student visas and move to Scotland, one of the country's leading immigration lawyers has said.

Jacqueline Moore, a partner at Thorntons Solicitors with 25 years of experience, is well-versed in the various types of visas and the people who use them.

“We try to be very creative in terms of if there is a visa pathway, we will find one,” she tells The Herald. “I've got quite a trend at the minute of retired Americans who are genuinely getting student visas to go back and do masters here.

“A long time ago, back in the day, there was a retired person with independent means visa.

Edinburgh University. (Image: Supplied)

“You had to have an income of £25,000. But that's long gone.”

“They genuinely want to come,” she explains.

“I had a client once who was doing architecture, she was really, really interested. And then this was back in the day when you were able to flip into the investor visa, but they don't have that anymore.

“People are looking into these options,” Ms Moore adds.

The anecdotal increase in retired students follows a trend which suggests the number of Americans studying at Scottish universities has increased over the last decade.

According to the most recent figures from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA), Scottish universities enrolled 6,160 American students during the 2024/25 academic year.

That is an increase of 48.6 per cent from 2014/15, when 4,145 American students were enrolled.

A total of 1,900 American students were listed as being enrolled in Scottish postgraduate programmes in 2024/25, with the highest concentration at the University of Edinburgh (710), the University of Glasgow (335), the University of St Andrews (330), and the The University of Strathclyde (125).

That is compared to 1,530 American postgraduates in 2014/15, a 24.2 per cent rise.

It costs £558 to apply for a Student visa from outside the UK plus £776 per year for the NHS surcharge, in addition to tuition fees (which start around £33,600 at Edinburgh University ) and living expenses.

The student visa route permits entry to the UK for around a year as a postgraduate student and up to four years as an undergraduate student, as well as the opportunity to progress to a 2-year (soon to be 18-month) graduate visa.

The head of Thorntons’ Global Mobility and International team , Ms Moore regularly collaborates with solicitors across a range of specialties.

“We strategically brought solicitors together from each of the different sectors, from immigration, from private wealth, from residential, from real estate,” Hannah Fraser, a colleague of Ms Moore who specialises in real estate and residential property law, explains.

Is the 'Trump bump' to blame for rising American migration? (Image: PA)

“We'll get your visa, we'll help buy your property, we can also help move your animals over.

“Or you want a private jet or a property sourcer because you want to buy quite a bespoke property, we can put all these people into play.”

Ms Moore says that the bump in Americans keen to move to Scotland began around November 2024, after Donald Trump was elected to a second term as president of the United States.

A recent change to nationality law also resulted in more Americans with Scottish grandparents being able to claim a British passport.

Coffee and gin: Meet the ministers moving from the States to join their Mother Kirk

How an American who moved to Glasgow 35 years ago became its biggest cheerleader

Why this American-Scottish family swapped California for a 'Simple Scottish Life'

Ms Moore explains: “You've always been able to get a British passport through your paternal grandfather. Only in the last two or three years have you been able to get it through your grandmother.”

She notes: “A really common story is an American with a grandfather who served in the Second World War and stayed in Edinburgh and he met Granny and they were always really proud of the Scottish connection.

“And then because of the big change in US politics in November 2024, people started to think: ‘Oh, well, why don't we just get this? Because we can.’

“And sometimes when there's a lot of change, people want to take action, in the same way that lots of people got Irish passports after Brexit, or any EU passport.”