What is the Points Based System and what does Tier 4 mean?
Starting from 31 March 2009, the UK government introduced major changes to the immigration laws relating to people from all countries (except the European Union (EU), European Economic Area (EEA) and Switzerland) who want to come to study in the UK for periods of six months or longer. The new system is known as the ‘Points Based System’, because visa applications from students (and other people, including workers) who want to come to the UK, will have to demonstrate they have the correct number of points for the relevant immigration category. For example, students will need to have 40 points. The new system consists of 5 tiers. Tier 4 relates to students.
