Stop charging overseas Brits international fees, say expats

Well, if these people are ex-pats, rather than just UK citizens working abroad temporarily, I really do not see why they should not pay the international fee rate. otherwise they are having their cake and eating it. But if, prior to their enrolment, these people have been paying UK tax and are British citizens, then they are entitled to home fee rates surely?

Hear hear. Having two kids studying master's degrees as international students has been awful. People should be free to move abroad and still retain their status as domestic. This smacks to me of a Brexit mentality. I note that with diplomats' kids or army kids the institutions pay the difference. Not so for ordinary citizens. I have paid all tax and national insurance contributions in the meantime.

UK should borrow from other countries, where once a citizen, always treated like one for payment of tuition fees. Citizens pay home tuition fees because the student status is pegged to citizenship, not where people work.

I have some empathy with this argument. Having spent a number of years working abroad (ironically, at a UK university branch campus), one of the reasons that I returned to the UK was to ensure that my children would qualify for home fee status when the time came. At the very least, the rules need to be much clearer and applied consistently.

This fiscal rule was actually introduced 45 years ago, in 1980 when Margaret Thatcher hiked the then overseas fees that was equivalent to UK fees (about £500pa if I recall correctly) to 'full cost' fees three or four times that level. Thatcher's governmental vandalism introduced the 'three years residence not for purposes of education' policy to define what was meant by a 'home' student. There were rightly huge waves of student protests at the time - I remember going along to support one of the many occupations of university offices at the London School of Economics against the policy in 1980/81. In the 1980s when I was responsible for enrolment processes in a large UK higher education institution I had to tell many UK citizens living abroad (particularly those whose parents had emigrated to Canada a decade or two earlier as I recall) that was the UK government policy and told them to contact MPs and Tory Ministers if they disliked it. In the 1990s after the Maastricht treaty the definition of "home" eligibility had to be extended to those living in EU member states, but again I had to explain to those who had emigrated out of the EU but kept their EU nationality, particularly those emigrating to Israel, that while they didn't need a visa at the time they were nevertheless classified as full cost international students just like those living outside the EU eg from Norway. Many of the ex pats complaining about this will have voted for UK parties committed to destructive fee policy for decades, particularly the Tories but also Labour and LibDems supported it. I have every sympathy with the UK born students denied an aspiration for UK education, but little sympathy with the parents, who should have known and calculated the financial consequences before they chose to leave. I'd be supportive of the alternative policy of a freely open education system, but as far as I'm aware this has only been carried out in one instance anywhere in the globe - medical schools in Cuba. This is largely privileged and educated people who have the resources to have relocated trying to bend the system to their advantage, while being unsympathetic to anyone else excluded from UK or any other state's Higher Education opportunities by the growing fee and taxpayer cost burden. I have no sympathy. If the students want UK HE, they can come back, work and pay taxes for three years to re-earn their residence entitlement and then gain their residential domestic fees status - which in Scotland by the way is free for all undergraduate level education, paid by the taxpayer.

Wow - the repeated accusations of having one's cake and eating it. One goes abroad for all sorts of reasons, mostly temporarily for work. During this time it is not like one stops paying tax - you simply pay it there, or in the UK as well if you are still doing some work back in the UK. What's with the 'getting something for nothing' argument? And yes, parents do realise that this is going to happen, and hence why my kids went to university in another country but came back to do master's degrees in Oxford and London. It doesn't stop one from being shocked and disappointed at the costs, when the kids carry British passports.

Recognition of home status linked to nationality and consistency of application of the rules is needed . My daughter is having an enforced gap year because of this, despite me being a UK tax and national insurance payer even whilst overseas and home owner since 1986. she has a uk doctor, bank account and has been back most holidays. We have also contributed to the uk economy while overseas and during travel back here. Russell group universities particularly York and Durham are arrogant and more worried about giving places to students from minority groups to be politically correct rather than looking after ‘ British’ born and bred children. Yes it is a privilege to live overseas but not everyone earns big packages. Many people work for the professional development, altruistic and cultural opportunities offered. Even with savings, £40000 a year to study away from home is unrealistic.The most galling fact is that even though we live here student finance won’t agree to the student loan… something that has to be paid back… how many home students get this and default… a fairer clear system needs to be put in place.

What is this talk of ‘subsidised’ HE for resident Brits? Yes, there is still a bit of taxpayer subsidy for STEM courses - in fact, a lot for Medicine. But otherwise the £9500 is for most degree courses supposedly the actual cost of delivery - while the higher O/S student fees are more based on what the market will bear (and hence the huge range across Us according to the a U’s perceived brand value and hence the hoped-for extra employability prospects of its degree). Perhaps more a question of whether the non-resident young Brit can access the loans for Home fees and for living-costs? - as loan debt that is indeed eventually ‘subsidised’ by the taxpayer if not paid off after 40 years of deductions from earnings by HMRC…

As an academic who has spent most of the last 20 years living and working abroad, I tend to think that British citizens who have made their homes overseas should pay international fees for their children if they want them to study in the UK. But from personal experience, I know that the current situation is a shambles and different universities interpret the vague guidelines very differently, so it is quite possible for British citizens living abroad to be regarded as a home student by half their UCAS shortlist and an international student by the rest. One of my family members from HKG was even treated as a home student for her first two years, then an international student for her final year!

Britain’s attitude toward its own diaspora has always been oddly punitive, and the debate over university fees makes that plain. Millions of British citizens live abroad, yet when their children apply to UK universities, they are often charged international fees — as if years spent overseas somehow cancel their nationality. Other countries actively cultivate their diasporas: Ireland and France, for instance, view citizens abroad as part of the national fabric, not outsiders. The UK, by contrast, treats its expatriates as faintly suspect — denying pension uprating, limiting voting rights until recently, and now pricing young Britons out of their own higher education system. It’s a parochial and self-defeating mindset. In a globalised world, British families abroad represent a source of talent, cultural reach and goodwill. Penalising them for mobility only weakens Britain’s long-term ties — academic, economic and emotional — with its own people.

This has nothing to do with nationality. People who live and work in the UK contribute through income tax, National Insurance, and other dues, helping to fund public services and sustain the economy. In contrast, many individuals who work abroad — particularly in tax-free regions such as the Middle East — pay no tax in the UK and often none where they work either. It seems deeply unfair that such individuals, who have chosen to live outside the UK tax system, can still expect their children to receive subsidised higher education funded by UK taxpayers. If one wishes to benefit from a publicly funded system, one should also contribute to it. You cannot opt out of paying taxes and then expect others to pay for your family’s education. If higher education were offered on a home-fee basis to families living abroad, many people might choose to leave the UK, work tax-free overseas, and still send their children to British universities without paying a single penny in UK taxes. Those children might then return abroad after graduating, never contributing to the UK economy or repaying their student loans. Why should the UK taxpayer fund the education of people who neither live here nor pay into the system? Publicly funded education should be reserved for those who contribute to the tax base that supports it. If you love your nationality so much, then live here and contribute to the economy. Paying taxes and supporting public services is part of being proud of your country — not just holding its passport. You can’t live abroad, avoid paying taxes, and still expect the UK taxpayer to fund your children’s education.