UK University Initiatives Supporting Forced Migrants: Acts of Resistance or the Reproduction of Structural Inequalities?

This article reports on a decade (2008–2018) of university-led “sanctuary scholarships,” which mitigate the challenges encountered by forced migrants with unsettled immigration status in accessing university: primarily financial barriers imposed by their categorization as international students and ineligibility for student funding. Secondary and primary empirical data was analyzed to i) map a decade of sanctuary scholarships delivered across the UK; ii) extend the debate from access to HE to interrogate the efficacy of sanctuary scholarships as a solution; and iii) assess the extent to which sanctuary scholarships challenge the structural exclusion of forced migrants from UK HE across three indices: growth and development, HEI investment, and student success. The findings reveal the extent to which neoliberal and administrative immigration logics are manifest in bordering practices specific to universities, and the interaction of the higher education border with university-led initiatives shaped by hospitality, in the context of anti-migrant hostility.