The Cost of an Undergraduate Degree in the UK

A guest blog article from our partner TorFX who specialise in currency transfer.

As one of the most popular study destinations in the world, thousands of students move to the UK each year to start their undergraduate degrees.

The UK is home to over 160 higher education institutions, including some of the most prestigious, competitive and well-known universities in the world. It offers great choice to both British and international students alike.

The benefits of UK higher education are numerous; unrivalled student experience, globally-recognised education, excellent career prospects, and more but studying in the UK can be costly and families need to plan and budget effectively.

There are three main areas of costs that families need to consider when planning for university in the UK; tuition fees, accommodation and living expenses.

Tuition Fees

UK bachelors degrees are usually 3 years in duration for most subjects although some degrees may be longer such as Engineering, Architecture, Veterinary Science, Medicine and Dentistry. Scottish bachelors are typically 4 years. Before starting to budget for the cost of tuition fees, you need to check the duration of the course you are interested in.

Tuition fees in the UK vary depending on whether you’re a home or an international student.

Home students pay tuition fees of between £1,820 and £9,250 a year, depending on which UK country you study in. Most students can apply for a government-provided tuition fee loan that covers the cost of this and is paid directly to your university.

For international students, undergraduate degrees begin at around £10,000 per year and can go as high as £61,000 per year, depending on the course you’re applying to. Tuition fees also vary depending on the university you’re considering – more competitive institutions tend to charge higher fees. Some universities also charge international students additional college fees of around £10,000 per year. It’s best to check the fees for any course you’re thinking of applying to for the year that you are applying, as fees tend to go up each year by around 5-10%.

International students aren’t eligible for the tuition fee loan. You may be able to secure a scholarship, grant or bursary, although these can be highly competitive. It’s worth contacting the universities you’re interest in to see if they offer any funding.

Accommodation and Living Expenses

According to Unipol, rented student accommodation was about £166 per week on average in 2021-22, while private accommodation cost £155 per week for an en-suite room in a house-share and £228 for a studio flat.

Of course, this varies hugely across the country. Rural and northern towns tend to be cheaper, while cities and popular tourist destinations are far pricier. In London, costs were significantly higher. University accommodation averaged at £212 per week and private rooms averaged at £259.

Living expenses, meanwhile, sit around £389 per month. This includes everything from groceries and gift-giving to health expenses and household bills. Students with family abroad will likely have higher travel costs too, so that’s something to factor in.

Overall, students can pay between £600 and £1,100 a month on accommodation and living expenses. Online student calculators are a great tool for adding up the cost of living and comparing costs in different parts of the country to be able to budget more efficiently.

Once again, home students are eligible for a government maintenance loan to go towards their cost of living. The amount is based on your household income and in 2022-23 ranges from £3,597 to a maximum of £12,667 (for someone studying away from home in London) per year.

Maintenance loans rarely cover the total cost of living. Instead, students will likely need financial support or to work while they study.

As with the tuition loan, international students are not eligible for government maintenance loans. Instead, they’ll need to secure their own funding or apply for a scholarship.

How TorFX Can Help

While TorFX can’t shrink the price that universities charge for a degree, we can minimise extra costs associated with currency exchange.

If you’re transferring an international currency into Pounds to pay for tuition, accommodation and living costs, you are likely to be charged for the transaction. You are also vulnerable to fluctuating exchange rates, as US banks, for example, request that your payment be made before providing you with a rate.

Currency exchange providers, on the other hand, specialise in conducting international money transfers – and can often offer a more competitive exchange rate. At TorFX, an account manager will explain the current rates available and can offer a variety of tailored products to help get the most from your transfer.

Tools we offer include spot contracts, forward contracts and market orders. Respectively, these allow you to transfer money immediately at the current exchange rate, fix a favourable exchange rate up to two years ahead of a transfer, or target the rate you’d like to achieve so that if and when that rate is achieved, the transfer will take place.

We also offer stop loss orders. With these you can set your minimum exchange rate and if the market moves to this level, your transaction will go ahead, protecting you from further losses.

Whatever the cost of a UK university education amounts to, don’t be tricked into paying more than you need to. Contact TorFX today by filling out our form for an online quote.

UK University Fee Status Rules

If you are going to a UK university, your fee status, i.e. whether you are charged home fees or overseas fees, is determined by a set of rules.

The rules are set by the government, but they are published online by a charity called UKCISA who support students in understanding their fee status eligibility. Anyone can access and read the rules online.

These rules differ in each of the four UK nations. The rules that apply to you are based on where the university you are applying to is located. For example, if you are applying to Scottish universities, you need to understand the Scottish fee status rules. If you are applying to English universities, you need to understand the English fee status rules and so on. If you are applying to universities in different parts of the UK you must apply all the relevant rules.

Here’s where to find them:

English fee status rules

Scottish fee status rules

Welsh fee status rules

Northern Irish fee status rules

The rules are largely derived from case law of previous immigration or student finance court cases. This is often where certain terms and definitions within the rules are defined so you may also want to read this information also.

Ordinary Residence Case Law

We understand that these rules can be confusing and it’s not always clear how your fee status would be determined.

UKCISA, who train us at UKSO and university staff on how to apply the fee status rules, offer free advice to students on their fee status and can be contacted here.

The UK Study Options team has extensive training and experience of fee status issues that specifically affect expat students. If you would like some feedback on your fee status case, complete our online form and we’ll get back to you.

PLEASE NOTE: The guidance on fee status rules is regularly updated and the link to the latest guidance may change. The above links are the latest guidance at the time of writing, May 2022.

Fee Status For Medical Degrees

Expat students that live abroad in any of the three years prior to starting their medical degree are in danger of losing their eligibility for home fees at UK universities. Each university will undertake due diligence when assessing whether a student has maintained their eligibility for home fees but if the course is a medical degree there is further scrutiny.

This is partly because the degree is so expensive to deliver and partly because home and overseas places for medical students are capped by the UK Government. Institutions that offer home fee places to students incorrectly are at risk of being fined by the UK Government so fee status for medical degrees is of added importance.

Cost of medical degree for home students v overseas students

UK home fees for medicine vary from £1,820 per year at Scottish universities (Scottish nationals), £4.630 at Northern Irish universities (NI and ROI nationals) to £9,000 plus for Welsh and English universities. Universities fix these lower tuition fees for home students as their places are subsidised by the Government.

The true cost of delivering such intensive medical training is much higher; overseas medical students pay anything between £32,000 per annum to up to £61,000 per year (depending upon the UK country, the institution and whether it is for preclinical or clinical years) for 5 to 6 years. There may also be additional costs for overseas students, such as College fees at Cambridge university.

The disparity in cost to students means that if you are borderline for home fees, such as expat students, there is a real importance to maintain your home fee eligibility to avoid paying a much higher rate.

Overseas students will not be able to apply for a student loan as home students can, so there is the added burden of funding the higher tuition fees and living expenses yourself.

Competition for places is tough

Medicine is a notoriously competitive course to apply for in the UK. It’s not just a question of being academically able, there is strong emphasis on having the right aptitude for medicine, the skill-set, attributes, ethical qualities and to be able demonstrate their suitability for such intense training and demanding career.

To add to the competitiveness of the course, the UK Government has capped the number of medical students it is prepared to fund each year. There are 29,000 applications each year for around 9,000 places. Only around 7% of the total places are allocated to overseas fee-paying students. Needless to say, the competition for places is extremely high as a home student but even more so as an overseas student.

Additionally, some medical schools do not accept any overseas students, so if you apply to these schools and are assessed as an overseas fee-payer, you will be rejected for this reason and not because you don’t meet the entry requirements.

When applying for medical school with the intention of applying as a home fee student, it is important that you are prepared in advance; you will need to actively maintain your eligibility for home fees and gather strong evidence to support your case. Once the application goes in, the universities will send the expat student a fee status questionnaire so that they can gather the information they need, along with the evidence required, to assess the student’s eligibility. A delay in submitting information and evidence is likely to delay the offer for months at a critical time in the application cycle.

Each year we help hundreds of expat families achieve their dream of attending a UK university on home fees. We are education consultants specialising in university education. Our consultants have each been at the heart of university admissions in top tier universities – see our team and experience.

How has Covid-19 affected fees status?

Since Covid-19 hit, there has been one full UK university admission cycle. Throughout this, we have been supporting families around the world with their fee status queries and observing how Coronavirus has impacted the decisions universities make on who gets Home fees.

Maintaining ‘Ordinary Residence’ is a key criterion for achieving Home fee status for many British expats. One part of demonstrating that you maintain this status is through regular travel back to the UK (or EEA in some cases) during periods where you reside elsewhere. When subject to a fee status assessment by the universities that they are applying to, students are often asked about their travel pattern back to the UK over a number of years as a qualifying characteristic of Ordinary Residence. As Covid-19 grounded flights in early 2020, British expats who live abroad would have seen this important travel pattern interrupted, and thus threaten to jeopardise the Ordinary Residence status that they rely on to remain eligible for Home fees.

There has been no formal national guidance on how universities should take this into consideration when assessing a student’s fees. Instead, each university has been left to use their discretion on individual fee status cases. Overall, we have seen most universities being flexible regarding the travel element of students’ fee status cases, i.e., the lack of travel has not automatically disqualified a student from obtaining Home fees. Most institutions have been empathetic to the fact that families have not been able to get back to their home country. However, despite this flexibility, we have seen universities across the country becoming increasingly strict on fee status in the last year, resulting in many more British expat students being classified as Overseas fee-payers than in previous years. This is likely to be a result of the Pandemic and also Brexit falling within the same year; two big financial blows to the university sector leading to more hard-line policy on who gets Home fees.

We are now in a new academic year, where students who wish to start university in 2022, will also have been prevented from travelling back to the UK in recent years. We are keeping a close eye on fee status assessments and if the same concessions will be made in the current admissions cycle. But as each university uses their discretion and makes decisions on a case-by-case basis, there is no guarantee that this flexibility will continue. Covid-19 is likely to impact fee status for many years to come, so is there anything you can do to minimise the impact on your own fee status case?

Here are a few tips that have helped our expat families impacted by travel restrictions:

  • As always you should keep records of all your travel to the UK, dating as far back as you can.
  • If you booked any travel during the Pandemic which was cancelled or postponed, keep records of this also to show that you intended and attempted to go back but were prevented from doing so by things outside your control.
  • Don’t expect UK Admissions teams to know what travel restrictions there are around the world, as they differ in each country. Keep a copy of the current travel guidance where you live in case you need to show the university that you were subject to travel restrictions. Screenshots of a news articles or national Coronavirus updates can be helpful.
  • Itemise your travel pattern pre-pandemic, to show that prior to travel restrictions you regularly travelled back to the UK. Volunteer this information to the university when you are being fee status assessed.
  • Consider travelling back to the UK as soon as you’re able again to show commitment to maintaining your Ordinary Residence.

UK Study Options are experts on UK university fee status and we support families all over the world with their personal fee status cases. Find out if you’re eligible for Home fees by completing our online form.

Fee Status Advice for International Schools

If you have British expat students at your international school who are looking to study at university in the UK, they may be classified as Overseas fee-payers, costing up to £350,000 more for their degree than if they were classified as Home fee-payers.

Providing advice on fee status to your students and parents is easy and can avoid them being classified incorrectly, as well as have other benefits to your school.

How does good advice on UK University fee status benefit your school?

  1. Improve your destination statistics.

If well-advised on fee status, students are more likely to get Home offers from all their university choices, including top institutions. Giving them the freedom to choose the best university and course for them – rather than their choice be dictated by where they managed to get Home fees.

  1. Improve your student retention.

Having clarity on the rules and regulations around fee status will help your parents make more informed choices about their child’s education. You can then retain students who would otherwise return to the UK before sixth form, thinking that this will secure them Home fees when it in fact may not.

  1. Increase confidence and reduce stress at application time.

Having a strong case for Home fees gives students and parents peace of mind during the application period and reduces the stress of having to appeal a fee status decision (which can take months). Clarity on a student’s fee status will speed up offers from the universities, allowing your students to just focus on which offer to choose.

How can you support your students and parents with their fee status queries?

  1. Get them thinking about it early!

Don’t wait until sixth form to encourage your students and parents to think about fee status. We recommend that Years 9 or 10 upwards have access to this information so they can make informed decisions about their living/work/study/travel plans well ahead of their application to university.

  1. Book a webinar with us.

We offer free webinars for schools on fee status that you can invite your students and parents to so they can be well-informed on fee status. Contact us to book a webinar.

  1. Share our blog.

We have loads of free advice on fee status that helps families navigate this complex topic on our Blog.

UK Study Options are leading experts on UK University Fee Status and we have helped over 1,000 families with their fee status queries. We are a team of ex Russell Group Admissions Officers who have many years’ experience of fee status assessment and we are trained by UKCISA on how to assess fee status.

UK University Fee Status – The Basics Part 2

Baffled by UK university fee status and not sure how it applies to you? Get to grips with the basics with our two-part blog on fee status.

This blog post answers the question:

  • Who is eligible for Home fees?

See our blog UK University Fee Status – The Basics Part 1, to answer the questions:

  • What is a fee status assessment?
  • What are the different fee statuses?
  • What are the tuition fee and funding options for the different fee statuses?

Who is eligible for Home fees?

Being a British citizen or holding a British passport is not enough to qualify you for Home fee status. Nor does owning property in the UK or having lived there previously. If you have left the UK and now live abroad or have recently returned to the UK after a period away, you may have lost your eligibility. Too many people take it for granted that when they return to the UK, they will automatically get Home fees but the reality is, it’s very easy to lose your Home status and have to pay much higher Overseas tuition fees for your UK university degree.

If you want to fully understand the rules and regulations around fee status, then we recommend that you visit UKCISA who publish them in full detail. They are quite dense and complicated, so here we give you a brief overview.

Firstly, to be eligible for Home fees, you must meet the necessary immigration criteria by having ONE of the following statuses (this is a bare minimum of what is required):

  • A British citizen,
  • Indefinite Leave to Enter/Remain in the UK,
  • A Certificate of Entitlement to the Right of Abode in the UK,
  • Right of permanent Residence in the UK,
  • Republic of Ireland citizen.

Secondly, you need to demonstrate that you have been ‘ordinarily resident’ in the UK for at least three years prior to starting university. This means having a “regular and habitual mode of life in a particular place, the continuity of which has persisted despite temporary absence” (UKCISA), i.e. maintaining strong connections that demonstrate that the UK country is your permanent home country even if you don’t currently live there. This can be demonstrated through a number of ways including, having a UK home and regularly visiting the UK, among others.

Thirdly, if it’s not clear whether someone has ordinary residence in the UK, then universities will look to see that any absence from the UK is of a temporary nature and that it is your (or your family’s) intention to return to the UK at some point. For this, universities will look at the parents’ current and previous employment, property ownership, rental agreements etc. There is no concrete rule about how long ‘temporary’ is – universities will take a different stance on this; some will have a strict cut off period and others will be flexible based on the student’s circumstances.

Generally, if a student fulfils the criteria for ordinary residence and temporary absence and is able to provide solid evidence for this, then they will be perceived as Home, although there are always anomalies due to the interpretable nature of fee status assessment. Completing university applications and forms correctly and presenting the right evidence is vital for a successful outcome. Whether you have Home fee eligibility is dependent on your specific background and living and working circumstances. Don’t make the mistake of thinking that if your friend got home status, so will you. Every family’s circumstances are unique and fee status assessments are made on individual, case-by-case bases.

UKSO are the leading experts in UK University Fee Status. We have been advising schools, families and students around the world on this complex topic for 11 years and have helped over 1,000 expat families with their fee status queries. Get in touch for a personalised Fee Status Appraisal.

UK University Fee Status – The Basics Part 1

Baffled by UK university fee status and not sure how it applies to you? Get to grips with the basics with our two-part blog on fee status.

This blog post answers the questions:

  • What is a fee status assessment?
  • What are the different fee statuses?
  • What are the tuition fee and funding options for the different fee statuses?

See our blog UK University Fee Status – The Basics Part 2, to answer the question:

  • Who is eligible for Home fees?

What is a fee status assessment?

The fee status assessment is part of the Admissions process of all UK universities which aims to establish what fees a student should pay based on where the student is from. They need to make this distinction because they receive funding (tax-payer money) for Home students but not for Overseas students and therefore, Overseas students will pay more for their degree than Home students. The process of assessing a student’s fee status is to determine if they are eligible for that funding or not.

In order to do this, universities apply a set of rules and regulations published by UKCISA to a range of different student backgrounds and circumstances. UKCISA do not write the rules, they simply publish them to help universities understand the relevant government legislation which can be quite complicated.

For the most part, this assessment is quite straight forward but for some ‘borderline’ students it may be harder to assign a fee status. Such students might be British citizens living overseas (expats), refugees, asylum seekers or leave to remainers, for example. Here universities use their discretion and interpretation of the rules to determine fee status.

In these instances, universities may automatically assign an Overseas status and leave it to the student to contest it or they may require students to submit further information to assist with the assessment of their fee status. Because each university is using their discretion in these instances (and therefore, applying a slightly different policy), it’s often the case that a student will receive some Home offers and some Overseas.

What are the different fee statuses?

There are two factors that determine the different fee statuses; firstly, where in the UK (i.e. which UK country) is the university that the student is applying to. Secondly, where is the student themselves from.

Fee statuses differ depending on whether the university is in England and Wales, Scotland or Northern Ireland. At the moment, they are categorised in the following way, however, once Brexit takes effect, the EU fee status is likely to change but as of yet, we are not sure how. Universities have fixed their fees until 2020 for EU students.

Universities in England and Wales have two fee statuses; Home (which applies to students from all UK countries and the Common Travel Area) and Overseas.

Universities in Scotland have three fee statuses; Home (which applies to Scottish students), Rest of UK (which applies to students from England, Wales and Northern Ireland) and Overseas.

Universities in Northern Ireland also have three fee statuses: Home (which applies to Northern Irish students), GB (which applies to students from England, Scotland and Wales) and Overseas.

All UK countries follow the same government legislation but may differ slightly in their assessment criteria and processes.

What are the tuition fees and funding options for the different fee statuses?

Tuition fees differ depending on where in the UK the student is applying to university. For universities in England, Home fees are currently set at £9,250 per year for any course. In Wales, they may be a little lower at £9,000 per year. Overseas fees range from £14,950 to £58,600 per year depending on the course and university.[1] Generally speaking, the more competitive the course or university, the higher the Overseas fees.

For universities in Scotland, Home students currently pay £1,820 per year for any course.  These Home places are capped so they can be very difficult to obtain by people with borderline eligibility. RUK students pay £9,250 per year for any course. Overseas fees range from £14,600 to £49,900.[2] Scottish undergraduate degrees are usually 4 years (at other UK universities they are typically 3 years depending on the course) – it’s important to factor this in when budgeting for university.

For universities in Northern Ireland, Home students pay £4,275 per year for any course. Students from England, Wales and Scotland pay £9,250 per year for any course. Overseas students can expect to pay between £16,000 and £38,000. [3]

In any of the four countries, most students who are eligible for Home fees are also eligible for a student loan (and sometimes a grant) to cover or part-cover their tuition and maintenance costs. Depending upon where the student lives, applications for student loans have to be made via the relevant student loans company such as Student Finance England  http://www.sfengland.slc.co.uk,  Student Awards Agency Scotland (SAAS) www.saas.gov.uk, Student Finance Wales www.studentfinancewales.co.uk or Student Finance Northern Ireland www.studentfinanceni.co.uk. Student loan companies will make their own fee assessment of each student who applies for a loan, they do not always concur with the fee status concluded by the university. It is not uncommon for a university to categorise a student as Home but the student loans company to categorise them as Overseas and therefore, reject their application for a loan.

Overseas students may have to pay additional fees, such as college fees at Oxford or Cambridge, that can be around £10,000 per year on top of tuition fees. Maintenance (or living) costs for all students are around £10,000+ per year of study.

Overseas students cannot apply for student loans to cover their tuition or maintenance costs, so their funding options are very limited. They also may be required to pay more of their tuition fees upfront and/or pay an interest fee if they wish to pay in instalments.

An additional factor to consider is that some courses, such as Medicine, cap the number of places available to Overseas students and therefore, the competition to get in is much higher. Some Medical degrees have as few as 4 places for Overseas students but will still receive hundreds of exceptional applications.

[1] Reddin Survey of University Tuition Fees 2020-21

[2] Reddin Survey of University Tuition Fees 2020-21

[3] Queen’s University Belfast 2020

Getting the Fee Status Questionnaire Right – Dos and Don’ts

If you are a borderline case for Home fees when applying to UK university, you may receive a Fee Status Questionnaire (FSQ) from one or more of the universities you are applying to. Borderline cases will be anyone who has lived outside the UK/EU for any period of time during your life. The FSQ form aims to get more information about you and your family’s background on which the university can make their final decision on your fee status. They will also ask for corresponding evidence to match what you write on the form.

Each university produces their own form and may ask for different information. Some will ask for information and evidence for the three years prior to the start of university (the most important years for establishing Ordinary Residence), others may ask for the last five years or even as far back as the birth of the student. So be prepared to explain your circumstances over a decade or more and dig out the evidence ahead of time so you’re not searching for it when you’re up against a tight deadline!

Most FSQs will ask for the following information:

  • Your immigration status.
  • Your residential history – and an explanation for any time lived outside the UK.
  • Details of visits to the UK when living outside of the UK/EU.

Dos for completing this form:

  • Explain your background fully yet succinctly – preferably use bullets points rather than paragraphs so it can be quickly read and understood.
  • Only include information/evidence that the university has asked for or that you think is very relevant.
  • Keep details/evidence in chronological order.
  • Be explicit – spell out strong evidence so they don’t miss it and explain any gaps or missing evidence.
    Clearly label corresponding evidence so it’s easy to find.
  • Get someone to sense check the form before you submit it to make sure it’s clear and logical.
  • Be aware of the deadline to return the form by.
  • Be transparent and honest.

Don’ts for completing this form:

  • Don’t lie on the form – if it unravels, you’ll jeopardise your university offer, not just your fee status.
  • Don’t waffle or write in long paragraphs which are hard to follow and time-consuming to unpick.
  • Don’t send masses of documents that have not been asked for or that are not absolutely relevant. There should be an opportunity to send further evidence later on, if necessary. If you’re not sure what is needed, give a list of available evidence on request/if required or call up the university and clarify what they need.
  • Don’t expect universities to work stuff out, hunt for information or fill in the gaps themselves. The onus is on you to explain your circumstances clearly.

UK Study Options are leading experts on UK university fee status and we have helped over 1,000 families with their fee status queries. We offer personalised support pre and post application. Get in touch for a Fee Status Appraisal or see our other blogs on Fee Status.

Three Tips for Appealing a Fee Status Decision

The UCAS applications are in and your son or daughter has started receiving offers, but you’re surprised and disheartened by the fact that the offers are for overseas fees and not home fees.

You’re now facing anything between a £14,250[1] and £171,250[2] increase in tuition fees depending on the course, and with no access to student loans, the added prospect of funding their degree completely yourselves. For many students, this may even amount to not being able to take up those offers, despite how hard they worked to get a place.

At UK Study Options, we deal with hundreds of fee status cases a year and we see this all the time. Unfortunately, after receiving an offer, it’s harder to change your fee status but you can ask the reason for the fee status given and appeal the decision on the grounds that you have additional information or evidence that could change the status.

It’s important to understand that universities must undertake due diligence to ensure that public funding goes to the correct students, i.e. home students. To make their assessment, they apply the rules and regulations published by UKCISA[3] as best as possible to a whole range of different student backgrounds and circumstances. For those who are genuinely eligible for home fees and may be subject to an incorrect fee assessment, here are three tips for appealing the decision.

One

Your son or daughter has been eagerly awaiting an offer from their top choice university but no matter how tempting, don’t let them accept the overseas offer until you have followed the appeals process to the end. Once you accept the offer, you are accepting the fee status given and there is no going back.

Two

Some universities may simply ask you to put your reasons for appeal in writing, others may have an online process you need to follow. Establish what the university’s appeals process is, initiate the process in writing and follow the process to the letter, keeping good records of all correspondence between you and the university throughout.

Three

Make it as easy as possible for the university to review your case by organising your information and available evidence into a digestible form. This may mean using tables to explain dates/visits, bulleted lists to explain relevant circumstances. Admissions staff won’t appreciate long paragraphs where they have to hunt for the information they need. And don’t send actual evidence through unless they request it – some university email accounts block emails with many or large attachments.

It’s always better to prepare your information and evidence well in advance of applying so that your son or daughter gets assigned the fee status that they are eligible for at the time of offer. But if you do wish to appeal a decision, the above tips should make the process easier for both you and the university.

We are experts in fee status who have received the same UKCISA training as university staff assessing your son or daughter’s fee status. We are a small team of ex admissions officers who understand the process from both inside the university and from the student’s perspective. This means we are best placed to help you with your fee status queries – get in touch for personalised support pre or post application.

[1] Based on the difference between the lowest home fees and the lowest overseas fees in the UK i.e. Art, Humanities or Social Science fees in Wales in 2018.
[2] Based on the difference between the highest home fees and the highest overseas fees in the UK i.e. Dentistry in England in 2018.
[3] www.ukcisa.org.uk/Information–Advice/Fees-and-Money/Home-or-Overseas-fees-the-basics

UK University Fee Status Myths and Assumptions

Myths and assumptions made by expats

So, the UCAS application is in at last and now you are receiving emails from individual universities asking you to fill in a Fee Status Questionnaire (FSQ). In this blog we tackle some of the myths that expatriate families may have about fee status.

Universities are part funded by the UK Government. They have to undertake due diligence in identifying students who have a right to UK tuition fees (and subsequently student loans). Particular scrutiny is given to students applying for costly degrees such as lab-based courses, veterinary, dentistry and medicine. Fee status forms are sent to students who are based overseas and some who are based in the UK to establish which category of student they are and whether they are entitled to UK fees. The FSQ forms are for prospective undergraduate and postgraduate students.

Myth: a UK passport is enough to entitle my son/daughter to Home fees.

No, British citizenship is just one of the factors for consideration. It is not enough to have a British passport, you also need to show that you maintain your ‘ordinary residence’ in your home country by visiting as a family often enough and for long enough each year. You don’t have to be a British citizen to be eligible for Home fees – asylum seekers, ‘Leave to Remainers’ and refugees may also be entitled to UK fees.

Myth: we don’t need to worry about fee status until my son/daughter applies to university.

The later you think about fee status, the less chance you have of building a strong case for Home fees. You should be planning for fee status 3-4 years before the start of university so that you can adapt your living/working/travel plans to make sure you have a rock solid case when you do go to apply.

Myth: being overseas on a visa means that I have to return to my home country and therefore should be entitled to UK fee status.

Thousands of expat families are based overseas on a visa which is re-issued every two years or so. Being on a visa does not mean that your son/daughter is automatically entitled to UK fees when starting university in the UK.

Myth: owning property in the UK should ensure Home fee status.

Not necessarily. It may help to own a property but alternative homes can be used depending on a family’s circumstances. The important thing to to have a ‘home base’ of some sorts.

Myth: visiting the UK each year for three years before university will ensure UK fee status.

Returning to the UK is an important part of maintaining your eligibility by establishing a pattern of ‘ordinary residence’ for at least three years prior to the start of university. However, some universities  ask for evidence of visits back to the UK for a longer period – for the duration you have lived abroad or even as far back as the student’s birth! It depends on the university’s fee status policy and how strict they are.

Rarely does one element of your case, such as the ‘home base’ or visits to the UK, alone decide your case, rather it is better to think of fee status as an assessment of multiple factors that determine how you case looks overall. Establishing UK fee status is not a simple tick box exercise. It is necessary to demonstrate commitment to your home country, showing that you maintain strong family links with a clear intention to return at some point in the future.

 

UK Study Options are experts in UK University Fee Status who provide personalised advice to expat families helping them to achieve Home fee status. Complete our online form to see if you need a Fee Status Appraisal.

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