There exist two interesting strands to the ‘international student’ stereotype reminiscent of the allegorical ‘Schrodinger's immigrant’. On the one hand, it is often presented that such students are privileged actors with means. They pay substantial tuition fees, significantly higher payments than are levied against home students, and they withstand the costs associated with transnational mobility. Indeed, financial security is one of the conditions in the Student Route Points-Based System introduced in the Immigration Rules. Meanwhile, on the other hand, there is a lingering caution that some of these students may be committing to study abroad purely for the purposes of securing immigration and/or for immediate economic gain. While it is disingenuous to ignore the racial dimension present in this rhetoric, there are also inherent socioeconomic inequalities to account for these disparities in approach. The suspicion expressed in the latter sentiment becomes especially pronounced when the country of domicile of these students populates the bottom half of global wealth indexes (see van Mol and Timmerman 2014).

The socioeconomic disparities between some of the world's wealthiest and its most financially deprived states have impacted the writings on the subject across the disciplinary spectrum, especially as these inequalities have been documented to impress upon the quality of life and opportunities available to its peoples (Faist 2016). To this end, ‘migration’, ‘education’ and ‘employment’ are probably three of the most touted routes to socioeconomic betterment for citizens of the world's disadvantaged regions (Slaughter and Cantwell 2012; Castelli 2018; King et al. 2010). The empirical agenda set out in this study is one instance where all three of these factors intersect. In broad terms, we examine the employment experiences of student-migrants of sub-Saharan African descent in the United Kingdom, and critically question the socio-legal implications of this exchange.