Uk university for non resident Brit
 

We have been living in Japan for 12 years and now realise our 18 year old daughter ( British passport holder) cannot enter a UK university as a "British person" , due to a 3 year residency law . If anyone has any advice for us it will be most welcome .(Just btw All my Oz andEuropean colleagues are shocked that this is the way we are treated ).I don't have 20,000 quid lying around to pay for the first year and a loan is only offered to residents I guess :confused:

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

Hi there and welcome to B.E. :)

The best place for you to look is probably the moving back to the UK forum here.

I suppose that if all the children of all the long term expats could get into Uni, the queue would be somewhat long but I can see where your frustrations might come from.

Any problems with navigating B.E., you can contact me here.

Enjoy B.E. :)

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

Hello and welcome to the forum. Good links from Sherlock as always. Hope you find the answers to your questions.

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

Hi and welcome to BE :)

As Sherlock has said, if you head over to the MBTUK board, there are a few posts about University for ex-pats.

You are correct in that eligibility for 'home student' status is based on residency, rather than nationality.

Could your daughter go and live and work in the UK (or another country in the EU) for 3 years then do her university course? By then she would meet the residency requirement.

Other choices would be university in Japan (no idea what the funding situation is there), or pay the international fees for the UK - or another country all together.

In theory, it could perhaps be possible to get home status if you can prove that the family were only abroad temporarily for employment reasons. Having said that, I'm not too sure exactly how you would go about doing that.

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

Hi Maninjapan,

Welcome to BE.

This subject comes up a lot in our Moving Back to the UK forum, so I am going to move this thread to that section for you.

Here are some recent threads that you may find useful:

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=774345

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=775610

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=769849

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=768056

http://britishexpats.com/forum/showthread.php?t=762927

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

This is probably the best solution, unless the OP is wealthy (unlike most of us).

Note that if she moves to Scotland rather than England she will fare much better financially at university when the time comes.
She can also do Open University at UK rates during those three years of life experience. Quite an adventure really. And if she is fluent in Japanese that would be a big asset in the job hunt.

Three years of service to the old country (if you want to think of it that way) does not seem excessive for what amounts to a scholarship.

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

Several important points have already been raised but I'd note the following:

If she studies in England and Wales, the fees are high even for residents, so it isn't that different for an "international" student (I'm not sure where you are coming up with your £20k for one year).

You are correct that international students are not eligible for student loans, which these days is the big difference rather than the actual cost (fees) of higher education.

As already suggested, if she lives in Scotland for 3 years her degree will be free (assuming the Scottish government hasn't changed their policy of free tuition/fees for Scottish and EU residents by then, which is actually quite likely, IMO).

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

Or go to university in Japan? Daughter's been there for twelve years since the age of six.

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

I suppose full independence may force the fees to be applied.......

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

What about going to university in Holland, Belgium or northern France. Many universities offer courses in English to attract students from the UK who can't afford the new university fees. The rules about residency might be different than for the UK and maybe your UK passport will get you resident fees without the 3 year requirement.

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

I just want to pick up on the implied attitude behind these two posts. I take issue with the UK's treatment of its expats on this subject because I think there's a fairer solution that can be seen to be working in other countries, for example Australia. Sure, deny expats returning to the UK access to higher education loans for their fees for a given period, that seems fair and proper, imo, but to treat its citizens as no longer citizens by charging them international fees is not unfair and quite cynical. Especially given EU students are treated more favourably than the UK's returning citizens.

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

Tend to agree with this.

We've made a decision not to disrupt the last part of Senior in Australia before heading back to the UK ... but as a result, it would put any university plans in the UK on serious hold.

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

That's effectively how it works now - if you look at the fees charged by universities, in many cases the international fees are much of a muchness with the home fees. What is different is the payment options - an international student does not have access to the same student loan structure as a home student.

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

But that's very recent and may change. It's the status of the student that bothers me. Well, the amount for uni fees in the UK bothers me too, but that's a whole 'nother issue!

And also, fees may change in the future, who knows, but the policy of classing UK citizens as international students and therefore more peripheral to the UK than EU students is grossly unfair.

Re: Uk university for non resident Brit
 

As a person with a child at uni in the UK I do understand the frustrations and I feel everyones pain, but where does the government draw the line? Many UK citizens have never been to the UK (eg children born abroad to a British parent) so should they too be entitled to counted as a home student? If so, how does that differentiate them from any other non-european citizen who has never lived or worked anywhere in the UK?

For example, I have met a couple of people whose parents were brought to the US as children, and so when they were born they became British citizens by descent and are entitled to UK passports, however they have never been to the UK ever, and their parents have not been back to the UK for decades. So should those UK citizens be allowed to be counted as home students do you think?