IN the last three years, 43 foreign students who came to York to study at one of this country's leading universities have vanished.

They have simply disappeared - presumably giving up their courses to slip away in the hope of being able to stay in this country indefinitely.

This is deeply worrying.

This newspaper is not one of those which believes we should be sealing our borders to keep foreigners out.

We welcome genuine foreign students to our city.

They bring money - overseas students from outside the EU contributed more than £13 million to the University of York's coffers last year, compared with £10 million from British students. They bring talent and they bring new cultures and new ideas.

It would be a tragedy if all this was put at risk by a few rogue students using study as a way to gain entry to Britain.

But, equally, there is a responsibility on the university to follow through on what happens to students it accepts and whose money it takes.

It is not good enough to simply let them use the offer of a university place as a back door into Britain. For a start, there are many genuine students who would leap at the chance of taking up those places.

And there must be some concerns about the safety of the missing students themselves.

Some may be economic migrants in search of a better quality of life here. Others may be on the run from persecution or ill-treatment at home.

But, once they vanish, they will be adrift in a country about which they know very little, with no safety net and few friends to turn to for help. They will be ripe for exploitation by criminals and human traffickers - and may find that life here is far worse than the one they fled from.