Fee status top tips

Each year I visit international schools where many students are UK/EU expats. I try to give accurate and updated advice to students and their families regarding fee status for university study.

Although there are no guarantees it does help you if know a little about the rules and regulations, whether you meet the criteria for Home/EU fees and, if you are eligible, how to compile a clear and strong case. You need to prepare in advance as once the UCAS forms go in it can become a stressful waiting game particularly if the institutions are waiting for information and evidence from you before making an offer.

It’s not just about having a UK/EU passport – you need to show the universities and the student loans companies that you actively live in the UK during the run up period of three years before the course starts.

British_passport_2002The rules and regulation governing Fee Status are published by each of the four UK countries; England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland. The outcome of your Fee Status may depend upon where your home is based and which country you are planning to study in.

Technically a student must be ‘settled’ in the UK on the first day of the first term of the course and ‘ordinary resident’ in the UK and have been ‘ordinary resident’ in the UK for three years prior to the first day of the first term of the course to be eligible for Home/EU fees at a UK university. Ordinary residence must not be for the purpose of receiving full time education so, even if the student has been in the UK at boarding school whilst the family remain overseas, this will not count as being ‘ordinary resident’.

Many expats ‘temporarily’ live overseas. Quite often temporary contracts of several years are extended many times so a student may actually have never lived in the UK at all!

Here are my top tips for the new 2016/17 academic year.

Decide where your home is!

It may seem obvious but I come across many UK students who have lived the expat life since birth. They may have family scattered over the UK to visit each year and perhaps a holiday home in Europe. Decide where your natural and habitual mode of living is with your family and stay there regularly, as a ‘family’ (at least one parent and siblings) for a number of weeks or months each year.

Return regularly to your home for substantial amounts of time as a family.

You do not need to own a home (it may help if you do) but you will need to have a regular, mode of family life in one place. You will be asked to provide documentation to support your case. In the past families have provided: family deeds, rental agreements, Council Tax Statements, Utility Bills – anything to show a strong connection to one place in particular. The documents will have your family name on – utility bills may even show the difference in electricity and gas usage in the months you claim to be in the UK compared to the months you are not. Some institutions have accepted shopping bills or bank statements showing transactions from one particular place.

Keep e-tickets and travel documentation for each family member when travelling to and from the UK.

It really helps to show for instance that each summer the applicant and any siblings and at least one parent travel into the UK and out again at the end of the summer. If you travel regularly on one particular airline you will have a record of your flights along with your air-miles. If you don’t think you have any records it is worth going back into your email accounts to find them!

Gather documentation to support your temporary absence from the UK.

There is no definition in the case law or legislation to define what is meant by ‘temporary’ absence from the UK. This is where is gets tricky as the rules and regulations governing Fee Status are open to interpretation by the institution as to what they think is a temporary absence. Some universities have used a cut-off point in the past of six years – so anyone who has lived outside the UK over six years will be treated as an overseas fee payer whether they are a UK national or not!

Some universities will ask to see the parent’s work contract. It helps if this contract is awarded before the family travel outside the UK to live and it states that on completion of the contract the family will be repatriated to the UK. This shows a clear intention of returning to the UK and may well support your case.

Fee Status outcome depends upon the student giving correct, clear information about their circumstances, providing comprehensive supporting documentation and showing a regular, habitual mode of living in the UK as a family for substantial amounts of time each year.

The fact that the rules and regulations are interpreted slightly differently by each country and each institution means that students may be given different fee status decisions by their five universities.

Geraldine Raison’s team at UKStudyOptions offer a Fee Status appraisal as well as ongoing help and support for students if required. The UKStudyOptions team are members of UKCISA and receive regular training along with UK university admissions staff. We can help get you prepared and ready by offering a personal appraisal, explaining the rules and regulations, looking at your strengths and weaknesses and giving you a check list of documentation to gather before you apply!

Email: hello@ukstudyoptions.com for details

EU Referendum

EU Referendum: What it means for EU students

www.ukcisa.org.uk/studentnews/802/EU-Referendum-What-we-know-for-EU-students

UKCISA have written a briefing paper to clarify the issues and to set out what they do and do not know at this point.

Precise points of law will have to be debated and clarified over the coming few years however UKCISA advises students to check their own position on:

  • fee status eligibility with the institution at which they are studying or intending to study; and
  • student finance with the appropriate agencies.

Student Finance

  • EU students currently on courses and receiving student finance will remain eligible to do so.
  • The funding bodies in England, Scotland and Wales have sought to reassure EU nationals about continuing student finance eligibility. UKCISA states that students who are planning to commence university study on an eligible course this Autumn will be eligible for student finance in the normal way. Those people will then continue to be eligible for student finance for the duration of their study on that course.
  • Student Finance NI has not as yet made an announcement but it is expected shortly.
  • There has been no announcement on eligibility for student finance for those planning to commence study in 2017.

Fee Status

  • It is UKCISA’s understanding that a number of universities are guaranteeing that fee status will not be reassessed during the duration of the course for those starting in 16/17 even if the UK leaves the EU before their course ends and they will continue to be charged the Home/EU rate rather than the significantly higher Non-EU rate.
  • You should contact your institution directly to confirm their policy but there is clearly an intention and commitment from institutions to do whatever is in their power to enable as many EU Students as possible to continue to study in the UK in the future.

What You Could Be Paying In Overseas Fees Compared To Home Fees

Overseas fees can range from around £12,000 a year to up to £27,000 for a lab based degree (including Maths) at Imperial and £35,000 plus for medicine or veterinary.

Many expats are still eligible for Home Fees: being settled in the UK and meet the main residence requirements – having a British or EU passport is just one aspect of eligibility, there are many others. The universities will also look at where the student has been residing in the three years prior to the first day of their university degree, if this is overseas, they will ask for details of your ‘ordinary residence’ in the UK and want to know why the student and family are based overseas, which may include information about the parent’s work contract, as well as seeking general background information. They may also ask for evidence to support a case for Home Fees and can go back to the students birth date if necessary.

Most people don’t realise until after the university applications are submitted to UCAS that they are going to have to make a case for Home Fees and send in evidence to show that they have active connections to the UK. The rules and regulations governing Home and EU fee status are vague, based on case law dating to the early 1980s and are open to interpretation by the university admissions staff.

This year (2016 entry) many students have been given a deadline of three weeks by their university choices to provide relevant evidence to support their case – not meeting the deadline may mean the universities will cancel their application. To complicate matters the UK has four governments, four countries that approach establishing a student’s fee status in a different manner and if a student is successful in obtaining Home/EU fee status at the university they have to go through a second process when they apply for student tuition fee loans.

With the real cost of an undergraduate degree estimated to be around £16,000 per head per annum, the universities are looking for students who have cut ties to their UK or EU base and have lost the right to being subsidised by the UK taxpayers. Recruiting overseas fee payers is an important income stream for universities. The Scottish Referendum in 2014 and the General Election in 2015 highlighted the issue of student fees and funding which is politically and economically driven.

Don’t be one of the families that have let their eligibility slide – make sure you know what to do to maintain your eligibility and what evidence you need to have to support your case.

I advise over a hundred families each year on their eligibility for UK/EU Fee Status – many of them are confused as to what constitutes eligibility and what evidence they need to send in to support their case. Don’t be caught out – contact www.ukstudyoptions.com for a Fee Status appraisal now.

Introduction to Fee Status

Do you have British expatriate teenage children planning to go to a UK university? Are you maintaining your eligibility for Home fees?

Overseas students planning to study for a degree at Imperial College this year will pay annual fees of £27,600 for a Maths degree, £26,000 for an Engineering degree and £36,400 for Medicine (Non-clinical and Clinical). This is quite a hike from the annual fee of £9,250 for Home students. Coupled with the fact that if you are designated an overseas fee payer you will not get a student loan. All this adds up to a significant outlay particularly over a four year degree or longer.

Many British expatriates assume that their children will automatically be designated a Home Fee payer and are shocked to find on submitting the UCAS form, the universities send them a Fee Status Questionnaire to ascertain the student’s fee status before making an offer. What follows is a protracted system of communication whist the universities fee teams gather all the information and evidence to support the claim for Home fees. Many students do not know if they are going to be Home or overseas for many months which adds to the stress before their final exams at school.

UK rules and regulations on fee status are complicated, politically driven and vary between UK countries and nationalities. They are related to government funding and student loans. England and Wales charge around £9,000 per year for Home students for all degrees; science, humanities and arts. Scotland’s fees are £1,820 per year for Scottish nationals (paid for by the government) but are £9,250 for English, Welsh and N Irish students (RUK). The frustrating thing is that the universities can interpret the rules and regulations as they see fit according to the information that they receive from the student. The onus is usually on the student to make a case for Home fees rather than pay the Overseas rate.

So, how can you ensure that you are a) eligible and b) maintain your eligibility for your children to remain Home Fee status rather than fall into the Overseas fee category?

There are several crucial elements to being classified as Home fees as opposed to overseas. You need to be a UK or Islands citizen, ordinarily resident in the UK (not for the purpose of education) and to be resident for three years prior to the first day of the first year of the university or college course. In England and Wales, the first day is designated as the 1st September – in Scotland the 1st August.

You can be ordinary resident in two places at the same time so, if you are based overseas, this is the way to go. You will however need to visit the UK regularly as a family to maintain your ‘ordinary and habitual mode of living’. It is really about establishing a routine of family life and gathering the evidence to support your case. The other element you may be asked about is the circumstances of you temporary absence.  They are trying to establish the fact, that if you were not based overseas you would be back in the UK at your main ordinary residence.

Every family’s circumstances are different and it is important to find out if you are eligible and how to maintain your eligibility. Find out now by contacting us at hello@ukstudyoptions.com.

Inside Fee Status

Many students and parents don’t realise that, in recent years, the fees and funding of UK/EU students has become a hot topic in the Higher Education community.

Student funding, including tuition fee loans, is driven by political and economic changes in each of the UK countries as well as Europe. The rules and regulations governing students funding are somewhat vague and open to interpretation by the Admissions Department in each institution, the onus may fall upon the student to make a case for gaining Home/EU fees and provide suitable evidence to support their case. Quite often, once a family has gained a Home/EU fees decision they breathe a sigh of relief until, increasingly in many cases, they have to start the whole process off again when applying for a tuition fee loan from one of the Student Loan Companies! If you are new to the process, our Introduction to Fee Status article is a great starting point.

 This year I have liaised on two particularly tough appeals: one where a student was in his second year and the university decided that he should be an overseas paying student rather than Home/EU fees status that he had been awarded for his first year of study. The second which is ongoing with a second stage appeal with Student Finance England – student funding had been withdrawn mid-degree course for an expat student and a demand for repayment of all funds has been made.

Many students manage to successfully gain Home/EU fees at their choice of university but increasingly there are many who don’t. You need to be prepared and be made aware of the changes that impact student funding and Home/EU tuition fees. Sign up to IntheKnow to keep up to date or for more urgent help email gr@ukstudyoptions.com.

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