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School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Old Jul 16th 2015, 6:39 pm
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Default School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Hi,

Things have been pottering along smoothly for us with getting ready to move back. My daughter, 14, has a place at school and my son, 16, has been interviewed and offered a place on a BTEC course at the local college, completing GCSE English and Maths alongside it. This morning I suddenly get an email from the same college saying that if he was to apply for a course then we will have to pay tuition fees of £8,000 as we have not been residing in a non-EU country for the past three years. The person who emailed me had replied to my initial "would you accept him at your college" email. Another person replied to that over a month ago and has helped secure a place for my son on a course. They've even sent the paperwork through to my in-laws house with the offer and when to come in for enrollment etc. This email I get today is from someone at their international students department.

I'm feeling confused and quite frankly p*%#ed off by this email. We've been living in Canada for six years. My son is a British citizen and has been to public school in the UK. My husband and I have always worked and paid our taxes etc etc. From the email I received it left me with the impression that someone could just come to the UK from, say France, and get college tuition for free because they were part of the EU - even though they might need extra support with ESOL etc and have never paid any taxes in the UK. Yet my son, who is British is not entitled to this because he has been out of the country for three years or more. My understanding was that international fee paying for British citizens who return to the country was only applied at the university level - hence why we have chosen to return now. The other thing that is bothering me is that the government state that he has to be in school until he is seventeen, so why should we have to pay for that? I thought schooling was free for all British citizens until they were nineteen years old?

Has anyone encountered anything like this before? Do you know of any loophole or legislation I should be aware of? Anyone who I could cintact or write to?

Last edited by luvmykids; Jul 16th 2015 at 6:42 pm.
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Old Jul 17th 2015, 2:11 am
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

I think you will find that your problem lies in the fact that you are "getting ready to move back", rather than already re-settled in the UK.

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Old Jul 17th 2015, 9:13 am
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Originally Posted by Shirtback
I think you will find that your problem lies in the fact that you are "getting ready to move back", rather than already re-settled in the UK.

.
I think that you are right.

We made a commitment that we would be IN the UK as residents when our kid would be attending college and he would be with us and we were told that since he is our dependent there would be no fees for his BTEC 16-18 studies. We were asked about our citizenship - ref right of abode and that was it, otherwise.

Actually we were prepared to pay the fees but were told it would not be necessary, which was rather a nice surprise.

The course is for two years and we are not sure what will happen ref fees after just two years, rather than the normal three for HOME fees come uni time. We believe it could depend upon how much the uni wants the student.
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Old Jul 17th 2015, 9:29 am
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Originally Posted by luvmykids
Hi,

Things have been pottering along smoothly for us with getting ready to move back. My daughter, 14, has a place at school and my son, 16, has been interviewed and offered a place on a BTEC course at the local college, completing GCSE English and Maths alongside it. This morning I suddenly get an email from the same college saying that if he was to apply for a course then we will have to pay tuition fees of £8,000 as we have not been residing in a non-EU country for the past three years. The person who emailed me had replied to my initial "would you accept him at your college" email. Another person replied to that over a month ago and has helped secure a place for my son on a course. They've even sent the paperwork through to my in-laws house with the offer and when to come in for enrollment etc. This email I get today is from someone at their international students department.

I'm feeling confused and quite frankly p*%#ed off by this email. We've been living in Canada for six years. My son is a British citizen and has been to public school in the UK. My husband and I have always worked and paid our taxes etc etc. From the email I received it left me with the impression that someone could just come to the UK from, say France, and get college tuition for free because they were part of the EU - even though they might need extra support with ESOL etc and have never paid any taxes in the UK. Yet my son, who is British is not entitled to this because he has been out of the country for three years or more. My understanding was that international fee paying for British citizens who return to the country was only applied at the university level - hence why we have chosen to return now. The other thing that is bothering me is that the government state that he has to be in school until he is seventeen, so why should we have to pay for that? I thought schooling was free for all British citizens until they were nineteen years old?

Has anyone encountered anything like this before? Do you know of any loophole or legislation I should be aware of? Anyone who I could cintact or write to?
As you have been out of the country for more than 3 years, your son would be classed as an overseas student, and therefore subject to those charges. You are still living in Canada, so they have no concrete proof that you will be returning to the UK to live. It would seem as though different colleges and universities do apply the rules differently, people on here have been lucky and got their children into Universities with 'home' fees, whereas others have been charged the full 'international' fees. Perhaps deferring his course for a year till you are in the UK, or reapplying as soon as you get back here might help, otherwise it may well be a case of either trying a different college, or paying the fees.
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Old Jul 17th 2015, 10:00 am
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Originally Posted by mikelincs
As you have been out of the country for more than 3 years, your son would be classed as an overseas student, and therefore subject to those charges. You are still living in Canada, so they have no concrete proof that you will be returning to the UK to live. It would seem as though different colleges and universities do apply the rules differently, people on here have been lucky and got their children into Universities with 'home' fees, whereas others have been charged the full 'international' fees. Perhaps deferring his course for a year till you are in the UK, or reapplying as soon as you get back here might help, otherwise it may well be a case of either trying a different college, or paying the fees.
This conversation is not the normal one about university which is a completely different ball-game but about college 16-18 (pre-19) when 'domestic' applicants are not subject to any fees.

For us the whole picture changed the moment that we advised that we would be accompanying our child and then when exactly we would be settled in the area which had to be at or before the commencement of the college year.

Far more complicated was the realignment of Caribbean CXC qualifications to fit the GCSE entry requirements.

I commend the college's international student coordinator for expediting all of the above in such a straight-forward way.

In passing, I wouldn't put much credence into certain applicants obtaining home fees for their kids at uni since it seems many were prepared to lie or distort in some fashion in order to get the benefit in the same way that many do to get some sort of NHS benefit - "little weeny white lies". Clearly we will never know what was actually said or written.

Last edited by Pistolpete2; Jul 17th 2015 at 10:04 am. Reason: Clearly we will never know what was actually said or written.
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Old Jul 17th 2015, 12:15 pm
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

I guess what's really confusing me here is that a) we already have an address in the UK and b) he has already been interviewed and offered a place. They interviewed him over Skype because we are in Canada! We have the paperwork of offer at my in-laws house. Nothing has gone there stating that he needs to pay fees. This lady who contacted us has not been invovled in this process at all, and she sent an application form along with her email in case we were interested in applying to the college!

I'm not opposed to paying fees, I kind of expected this. However, paying fees of £8000 for the year is a little extreme IMO! This is a BTEC course, not a degree!
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Old Jul 17th 2015, 12:29 pm
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Originally Posted by luvmykids
I guess what's really confusing me here is that a) we already have an address in the UK and b) he has already been interviewed and offered a place. They interviewed him over Skype because we are in Canada! We have the paperwork of offer at my in-laws house. Nothing has gone there stating that he needs to pay fees. This lady who contacted us has not been invovled in this process at all, and she sent an application form along with her email in case we were interested in applying to the college!

I'm not opposed to paying fees, I kind of expected this. However, paying fees of £8000 for the year is a little extreme IMO! This is a BTEC course, not a degree!
Re bold: but you are not *physically present" or resident in the UK, unfortunately . I have an address in the UK too, but it doesn't entitle me to any of the "perks" (I use the word lightly) of being resident there.

As has been mentioned already, some establishments don't seem to bother about the non-resident fees. You seem to have found one that does.

TBH, I think that if your son had applied once back in the UK, the college wouldn't have noticed/enforced the 'three year residency' rule.

Have you contacted the person/people who dealt with his application/interview/acceptance?
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Old Jul 17th 2015, 12:36 pm
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

He has no GCSEs, so any college is going to question this, whether he went to college this year or next year. Also, by law in the UK now, he has to be in school until he is 17 so he can't just take the year off like someone suggested.

The person who I've been dealing with is on vacation until Monday. It's kinda put a spanner in the works really. I was due to book flights today, but now feel in limbo.
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Old Jul 17th 2015, 1:08 pm
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Originally Posted by luvmykids
He has no GCSEs, so any college is going to question this, whether he went to college this year or next year. Also, by law in the UK now, he has to be in school until he is 17 so he can't just take the year off like someone suggested.

The person who I've been dealing with is on vacation until Monday. It's kinda put a spanner in the works really. I was due to book flights today, but now feel in limbo.
Hmmm, regarding the legal school-leaving age: I might be inclined to contact the LEA (or whatever it's called these days); they were helpful when my daughter & I were back (rather more briefly than intended) a few years ago.
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Old Jul 17th 2015, 2:17 pm
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

The education act has changed and he has to be in school until he is 17. The college has just contacted me and they are adamant about the fee. There is another college in the area, we will apply to them too. This now has me wondering about my daughter who is 14, will she be charged for public school?
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Old Jul 17th 2015, 2:28 pm
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Originally Posted by luvmykids
The education act has changed and he has to be in school until he is 17. The college has just contacted me and they are adamant about the fee. There is another college in the area, we will apply to them too. This now has me wondering about my daughter who is 14, will she be charged for public school?
Mine wasn't at 12.

I did have brief contact with LEA/school before we moved, but didn't actually take any steps to register her until we were there.

I did have to take an habitual residence test; I don't recall that it had anything to do with schooling.

(Info from 2012; we didn't stay in the UK).

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Old Jul 17th 2015, 3:38 pm
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Originally Posted by luvmykids

I'm feeling confused and quite frankly p*%#ed off by this email.
The rules state that you must be living there for three years for purposes other than education otherwise you will be charged international fees.


We've been living in Canada for six years.
You don't meet the three year criteria.


My son is a British citizen and has been to public school in the UK.

Citizenship is irrelevant as the rules are based on residency.


Yet my son, who is British is not entitled to this because he has been out of the country for three years or more.
That's right, he isn't.

I was once sitting in a meeting with Jack McConnell when he was Scotland's First Minister - this was a meeting at a university here in Ontario and there were a few graduate students in the meeting along with university officials and officials from the British and Scottish governments.

McConnell was talking about encouraging people of Scots background to return to Scotland. I mentioned to him that myself and some of the other grad students in the room were his dream candidates - people who were well educated (beyond degree level), who had Scottish parents, who had family all over Scotland (and could thus easily make the transition to living over there), who held British citizenship, that many of us had lived in Scotland at various times in our lives (me being one of them), and that we were people who were likely to remain in Scotland upon graduation from our respective graduate programs and thus make a positive economic contribution to the country.

I said that the only thing that was holding many of us back was the international student fees and that, if he wanted to encourage Scots or people of Scots descent to return to Scotland, his government should do something to ease the financial burden on us (by eliminating the three year waiting period, by giving us grants to cover the fees, or by whatever means they could come up with) before bothering to attempt to encourage other people, whose connections to Scotland were nowhere near as strong as ours and indeed were rather tenuous, to emigrate to the country.

McConnell responded by saying that us grad students sitting in that room were, indeed, dream candidates but that there was absolutely nothing that they could do about the international fees and the three year period because it was an EU rule and there was no way to get around it. I pointed out that my parents had grown up in Britain, paid taxes there, that my father had served in the British Army, that my mother had been a civil servant, and that it was kind of outrageous that their child could not get home fees when someone from Germany, who has never set foot in the UK could, and McConnell again pointed out that it was an EU rule over which they had no control and that there was no way around it (kind of makes you wonder why the SNP claims they do not want to be ruled form London but want to remain in the EU which simply means that they will be ruled from Brussels ).


My understanding was that international fee paying for British citizens who return to the country was only applied at the university level

My understanding is that it is for all further education. Someone else here might have a more definitive answer for you though.


The other thing that is bothering me is that the government state that he has to be in school until he is seventeen, so why should we have to pay for that? I thought schooling was free for all British citizens until they were nineteen years old?
For secondary schools, not for further education.
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Old Jul 17th 2015, 3:45 pm
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Originally Posted by luvmykids
I guess what's really confusing me here is that a) we already have an address in the UK

But you do not live there and his school records demonstrate that.


b) he has already been interviewed and offered a place.
They interviewed him over Skype because we are in Canada!
The departments that deal with admission and fees are entirely different. The department that deals with fees does not become involved until after a student has been offered admission. Prior to that offer of admission they aren't even part of the process. This is standard practice in colleges and universities in the UK, Canada, the US, etc.



This lady who contacted us has not been invovled in this process at all
As I mentioned above, they are two completely different departments. Actually, if this woman is an international student adviser she is from a third department that is not involved with the other two! You have to remember that the administration in a college/university is a bureaucracy and we all know how inefficient those can be!

and she sent an application form along with her email in case we were interested in applying to the college!

Standard practice in a department like hers, and the attachments are often automatically attached to emails.



I'm not opposed to paying fees, I kind of expected this. However, paying fees of £8000 for the year is a little extreme IMO! This is a BTEC course, not a degree!
International students pay higher fees so that amount makes sense.

Last edited by colchar; Jul 17th 2015 at 3:50 pm.
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Old Jul 17th 2015, 4:03 pm
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Originally Posted by luvmykids
He has no GCSEs, so any college is going to question this, whether he went to college this year or next year. Also, by law in the UK now, he has to be in school until he is 17 so he can't just take the year off like someone suggested.
He presumably, if resident, has the option of attending a secondary school without cost. I guess the "local college" is classified as being "post secondary" even if the particular course he's enrolling for is arguably not of a post-secondary standard.

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Old Jul 17th 2015, 5:44 pm
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Default Re: School/College Advice needed - college trying to charge fee

Yes, I've decided to contact the local sixth forms. Presumably they offer GCSE courses for students who haven't made the grades for A-levels, so perhaps that is the route for him.
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