alohavic

I moved to Canada at the end of October with my husband and 17 year old daughter (she was 18 a few days ago). He had a temporary work permit for 3 years but needs to apply for permanent residency by the end of Feb.

My daughter was very unhappy at her old school and jumped at the chance of a fresh start. She's settled in really well and loves her new school but isn't keen on the universities over here and would prefer to return to the UK to study.

As our move is so recent does anyone know if there is any way that she could could complete here high school diploma here and still be classed as a home student and access student finance in the UK? She has already booked a one way ticket home at the end of June as she was planning on travelling for a few months in Europe.

Thanks for any advice you can offer.

Pulaski

So long as your husband and you are on temporary visas/permits then you can claim that your usual residence is still in the UK, and should be able to get your daughter accepted as a British resident.

Once you apply for permanent residence or citizenship overseas where you are living, you lose the right to claim that your absence is temporary and therefore your daughter will be on the hook for international fees.

alohavic

Thank you, that's really useful to know.

Out of interest, as our daughter is now 18, would it make any difference if we applied for PR but didn't include her on the application?

HKG3

It will be wise to include your daughter in the Canadian PR application if you can. This will give her a chance to go back to Canada if she wants to.

alohavic

That would be ideal HKG3 but the course that she wants to do is for 4 years so it's unlikely she could fulfill the PR requirements

Debidoos

If I were you I would check this out first by contacting the UK student finance - not sure if any of you have had any recent dealings with them but I have since I have two boys who have both gone through the university system in the UK. Both my boys live in England now, my eldest having completed his degree and my youngest in his first year. Mine is a rather complicated story, I now live in New Zealand, however I also lived in Australia for two and a half years. Whilst I was living in Australia both my sons lived with me, and they, like me obtained Australian Citizenship. Not long after, we returned to the UK and my son applied to numerous UK universities. It was a complicated process, applying to uni with overseas South Australian quals - it took ages for unis to get back to us as know one seemed to know how they compared to A levels and what they were worth! My son finally got a place via clearing but then came the nightmare of student finance. They wanted to charge us international fees and I had to fight tooth and nail for him to get domestic fees and they only granted it as his birth dad still lived (and had continued to pay taxes in UK) whilst I had moved abroad with my second husband.

I moved to New Zealand in 2013 and my youngest son remained in the UK with my ex husband. In that time my second son became estranged from his dad (my ex husband) and so he wanted me to provide my NZ equivalent to a P60. It was so complicated to sort out, I ended up having to fly back to sort it all out. The Student Finance Team are incredibly difficult to deal with, they made so many mistakes. In all honesty, and I dont want to put your daughter off, I would email them or ring them on skype for an honest answer. My guess is you would have to prove to them that you were out of the country on a temporary basis, although how you would do this i'm not exactly sure which is why i suggest you ring or contact them. Great that she wants to travel around Europe, but just to make you aware that she wont be able to claim any benefits until she has lived in the UK for at least 3 months. In my experience they have really tightened things up there now. Dont want to sound negative, but knowledge is power and it prevents disappointment further down the line.

christmasoompa

How are you applying for PR, I assume PNP if you're saying you have to apply by Feb? If so, the earliest you're likely to get PR is around the end if the year if you drag it out a bit, so she may be ok. Remember she'd have a year from the date of her medical to land and activate PR, so that's probably around Autumn 2018 if she leaves it until 11 months or so in to that, then the clock starts ticking, meaning she should be back in Canada by Autumn (ish) 2021.

But if she returns to Canada for holidays etc, that would drag that time out a bit, so if it's a 4 year course and she's starting this year, she should be ok. I would definitely apply for PR for her in case she wants to live in Canada in the future.

HTH.

morpeth

Thing do seem to have tightened up. My understanding is that if her course is 4 years, the 4th year would be as UK resident rates if the first 3 are not. I am unsure if the child came back and worked for a month or two whether that would help deal with the residency rules, I know for some benefits it does.

I am unsure how it works in Canada, but in USA there are actually some student finance programs that actually can help pay for tuition at some universities in the UK.

HKG3

The link below will give the OP an idea whether her daughter qualifies for home student fees when she return to the UK -

https://www.gov.uk/student-finance/who-qualifies

SAAS Full Time Student Information

In order to qualify for home student fee status, the student 'must have been ordinarily resident in the United Kingdom for the three years immediately before the first day of the first academic year of the course'.

The OP will need to read the above links carefully and accept the fact that her daughter may require to pay international fees for studying at an UK university.

petitefrancaise

The information is found here
UKCISA - international student advice and guidance - England: fee status
you would look at section 5 - whilst you are not permanent residents in Canada then you are "ordinary" resident of the UK. Looking at it, the wording of the second requirement is "you were ordinarily resident in the UK on the first day of the first academic year of the course". Which suggests to me that even if you change your status to permanent resident in Canada, it won't matter because she was "ordinary" resident on the first day of the first year of the course.
Check with a university admissions though.
Your daughter would apply through UCAS and should be able to get her fees paid and student loans since she will be assessed as a UK student would.

alohavic

Thanks so much to everyone for all the help and advice. My daughter sent her UCAS form off today so we're keeping our fingers crossed that she's accepted as a domestic student and then we'll face the student finance hurdle!

petitefrancaise

Would she not think about Maastricht? Utrecht? they both offer loads and loads of courses in English. She would get domestic rates which are very low.... not too late to apply either. My son has also applied to Amsterdam University College and Groenigen. He doesn't want to study in the US and is more European than British since he was brought up in France..

alohavic

I'll certainly get her to look into some European options - thanks for the tip.

Good luck to your son too

Debidoos

I am not sure if your interpretation is correct and to be honest I would ringvthem that way you get a straight and honest answer.

Do you still own a house in England? To be ordinarily resident in New Zealand means you need to own a property or proof you are ordinarily resident - eg long term rental agreement - check this out on the student finance website:


Your nationality or residency status
You can apply if all of the following apply:

you’re a UK national or have ‘settled status’ (no restrictions on how long you can stay)
you normally live in England
you’ve been living in the UK for 3 years before starting your course

Good luck and if you manage to succeed please let me know I would be very interested to hear how � ����

petitefrancaise

No, you do not need to own a house in the UK.
If you are on a temporary visa somewhere, then "ordinary" residence is the UK.
This isn't my interpretation - it is what people have done. I suggest that your child joins the IB international student forum if they are doing IB.

In my situation, we are permanent US residents so for the UK we would have to pay international rates. We knew this. My son will go to Holland as an EU student paying domestic(Dutch) rates since they only care about nationality and not residence.