University costs for expats/international?

[EvaCH]

We are British expats living in Australia, and DD wants to apply to university in the UK (she wants to read philosophy which isn't really done in Aus), however we are not sure we can afford international costs - we could afford the fees for the course (15000gbp) but she's looking at Oxbridge which has an added 7000 approx college fee, Edinburgh, or St Andrews which is around 17000 for a course, and none of this is including living costs which I would think would be a minimum of 10000.

Obviously this depends on whether she actually gets in, but how did any international people manage to afford the fees? Should we get a loan? There seems to be limited financial assistance for international student - should we tell her she can't apply?
Don't want her to be accepted and then have to tell her we can't afford it!

EvaCH, if you and your DD have British passports, then you should be able to obtain "settled" status. This means that you pay local fees, ie, the same as other Brits.

In addition, your DD should be able to get the loans for fees and maintenance, just like other Brits. To get "settled" status, you have to be in the UK by 1st September before starting.

If you "settle" in Scotland (and here the cutoff is 1st August) you will pay Scottish fees, but your DD won't be able to get a maintenance loan.

It is harder to get in to a Scottish university, because they have a limited number of places for "local" students and your DD would count as one of these for fee purposes.

I'm afraid that advice is completely wrong. Even if you are British Passport holders you need to have been living in the UK for at least three years (not for educational purposes) to count as a 'Home' student, and therefore be eligible for UK fees and loans.

Suggest you look at the Student Finance website.

Fees will vary by University - so it may be possible to find a good University that offers lower fees and lower living costs.

No need to take my word for it, the information is here

Note that:

"'Settled' means being both ordinarily resident in the UK and without any immigration restriction on the length of your stay in the UK.

"If you have the Right of Abode .... you are considered as settled for the purposes of all four UK countries’ fees and student support regulations.

"If your passport describes you as a ‘British citizen’, then you also have the Right of Abode and are, therefore, settled for the purposes of all four UK countries’ fees and student support regulations."

So there would be no need for you to pay international fees. hth!

VegasIsBest If OP's DD hasa British passport describing her as a "British Citizen", and she takes up her "Right of Abode" by 1st September (or 1st August for a course in Scotland), then why would the 3-year rule apply?

Would you consider other countries? Germany for example abolished tuition fees last year and there are some (and increasing) courses taught in English.....

The three year rule is correct, I know people who have been caught out by it and had to pay fees in England....

Did they have British passports? Had they taken up their "Right of Abode" in time?

If OP's DD hasa British passport describing her as a "British Citizen", and she takes up her "Right of Abode" by 1st September (or 1st August for a course in Scotland), then why would the 3-year rule apply?

The university know that she is obtaining her high school qualifications in Australia and thus (even if a British citizen) cannot honestly claim to be have been ordinarily resident in the UK in the three years before starting the course (unless she spends considerable time there, i.e. all school holidays).

I know of a number of cases where universities and student loan companies have refused to accept that such students have the right to pay home fees when they have not been resident for the previous three years. See points 1 c) and 5c) of your own link

www.ukcisa.org.uk/International-Students/Fees--finance/Home-or-Overseas-fees/England-Higher-Education/

I cannot find any information that suggests that people have to be resident for three years to be classed as home students.

Are there any other British expats that have achieved "settled" status, and hence have obtained home fees in England or Scotland?

Australian national university (an excellent university) offer philosophy

As does uni of Tasmania, Notre Dame, Macquarie and uni of Queensland

I don't know if it is cheaper or whether it offers the right course, but it might be worth looking at Trinity College Dublin.

Recent experience of British relatives educated in Hong Kong is that a certain amounts of shopping around can be done. Universities seem to decide individually how they interpret the rules about who they should consider as a home student.

www.shef.ac.uk/ssid/fees/status

"Who can be classed a Home student for fee purposes?

The Education (Fees and Awards) Regulations 2007 define who is eligible for Home fee status, setting out the categories of students who are eligible to pay the Home rate of tuition fees. You should consult the regulations for the full, up-to-date definitions of eligibility. An indication of the categories identified in the regulations is provided below:

UK nationals and certain other people who have 'settled' status in the UK, meaning they have indefinite leave to remain and no restrictions on their stay in the UK. They must also have lived in the UK for at least the 3-year period immediately before (and including) the 1st September before the course starts. "

There is more, it is worth reading carefully.

I'm a UK subject, DD was born in the UK and also a subject. We've never taken up citizenship of another country.
I have checked the info carefully and as we're currently living in the U.S. I know that for DD to be able to go to a UK uni as a home student we need to move back 3 years before she goes to Uni.

The latest link is the relevant one.

A friend of mine was nearly caught out with the international fees. She had to live with grandparents during her A Levels and defer uni for a year until she had completed the three years prior to starting.

My BIL is at ANU studying philosophy and is having the time of his life. Fantastic course and university.

Thanks everyone for advice!
I would assume the answer is yes, but do all students in DDs situation immediately get classified as international? Or does the university make the decision? On the university websites we've looked at it says something along the lines of 'fee status cannot be confirmed until a place has been offered' - does this mean anything?

Allthreeways, Thanks for the suggestions! DD has looked at the course at ANU and Notre Dame (will certainly be applying to ANU), however most places (Macquarie, Queensland as far as we know) offer a bachelor of arts with a philosophy major, which is a bit different.

The university does not have a choice about how to classify your DD: if she has not been ordinarily resident for the three years before starting the course she is not eligible for home fees. The default is that on seeing the international home and school addresses they will classify her as international. To change this you would have to supply evidence of her meeting all criteria for home students (listed in points 1 and 5 of the link above) but from what you say she does not satisfy the ordinarily resident for 3 years criterion.

Note that even attending a UK boarding school for the preceding three years doesn't count as being ordinarily resident (in almost all cases).

"then why would the 3-year rule apply?"

Because that is the qualifying period, as set out here www.ukcisa.org.uk/International-Students/Fees--finance/Home-or-Overseas-fees/

My daughter went to an international school in Canada as a boarder. I continued to live in Scotland (working, paying taxes, in family home). She came home for summer holidays.

The funding body said she would not qualify as a home student.

OK, I have checked the regulations more thoroughly. It seems that if someone with a British passport has been living in the EU, they can still claim "settled" status without having lived there for three years.

[[http://www.ukcisa.org.uk/International-Students/Fees--finance/Home-or-Overseas-fees/England-Higher-Education/#6:-EEA/Swiss-workers,-and-family see category 2]

So living in Australia would exclude OPs DCs from being able to pay home fees. However, the advice seems to be correct for people who are living in the EU or Switzerland. Sorry, OP. I had understood that the rules regarding being "settled" applied to all UK passport holders, rather than just those that were living in EU.

Presuming that the guidelines haven't changed very recently...

I think some of the information being given here is incorrect. If the OP is on an expat package in Austrailia but is normally based in the UK then it's possible that the OPs DD would be eligible for home fee status. The fact the OPs daughter is schooled in Canada is irrelevant.

We lived overseas on an expat package and did not even own a house in the UK and our eldest was awarded home fee status despite non of us having lived in the UK for over 13 years. We only moved back to the UK 2 years (almost to the day) before my son started Uni.

The things that enabled us to claim home fee status were mainly that my DH was employed by a UK company and that his contract/pension etc were UK based. We were paid as expats, eg flights 'home' to the UK and housing and schooling costs while on assignment. The contract also included repatriation costs to the UK when his assignment finished. We visited the UK at least once a year to spend summer with our relatives. Another factor was that in the last country we were living in we were there on a overseas workers visa.

All these things added together meant that it was straightforward getting home fee status.

Some but not all of the universities were happy to confirm whether or not we would get home fee status before my DC applied.

My DC was applying for medicine which meant that not getting home fee status would have been extremely expensive and made it much more difficult to get a place.

BTW we we living outside of Europe.

OllyBJolly. That's sounds really odd. Were there any other factors that meant your DD was treated as an overseas student or is it something to do with. You living in Scotland rather than England??

Sorry for the long post but this copy and paste explains. The important bit is the definition of Ordinary residence I've bolded the relevant bit.

INFO HERE - Ukcisca OVERSEAS FEES

You are ordinarily resident in the relevant residence area (which depends on the category and its qualifying conditions) if you have habitually, normally and lawfully resided in that area from choice. Temporary absences from the residence area should be ignored and therefore would not stop you being ordinarily resident. It has also previously been successfully argued in the UK courts that an individual can be ordinarily resident in more than one place at the same time; individuals wishing to demonstrate this would have to be living a lawful, normal and habitual residence in each of the areas in question.

If you can demonstrate that you have not been ordinarily resident in the relevant residence area only because you, or a family member, were temporarily working outside the relevant residence area, you will be treated as though you have been ordinarily resident there

Where a category includes a condition that the main purpose of your residence must not have been to receive full-time education, a useful question to ask is: "if you had not been in full-time education, where would you have been ordinarily resident?". If the answer to this question is "outside the relevant residence area" this would indicate that the main purpose for your residence was full-time education. If the answer is that you would have been resident in the relevant residence area even if you had not been in full-time education, this would indicate that full-time education was not the main purpose for your residence in the relevant area.

See 'Ordinary residence' case law for how the UK courts have debated issues of ordinary residence.

Settled' means being both ordinarily resident

Ordinarily settled means a period of residency prior to applying to Uni.