Qualifying for home fees and student loan - working abroad

[Lollipity]

I hope someone can shine a light on what is an area of confusion for me.

I have been working abroad (in China) for 2 years. My DD is about to begin her year 11 studies.

I know that student finance for uni is based on being ordinarily resident in the UK. So one employment contract is fine as long as you can show that the UK is your 'home'.

Our plan was to stay here for the next 2 years and to make sure that we regularly returned during holidays - take our house back (currently let) and for DD to find summer work each summer.

Covid has ruined that plan - China is locking down further, quarantine is currently 3 weeks, most flights are cancelled, and prohibitively expensive so it is just too difficult to leave the country.

I'm worries that DD will not qualify for home fees and student loans as we won't be viewed as ordinarily resident. Does anyone have any advice? Will they take covid into account? We can't afford international fees! She would be unable to attend uni if this were the case. We are considering coming home for A levels.

This isn't my area at all - but it is risky for you. While some account is being taken of Covid, SLC may well take the view that there still isn't enough evidence of her being ordinarily resident in the UK. As you say there are still flights, even if they are expensive. The other issue (surprisingly common) is that the uni may be happy to regard her as a home student, but SLC won't, so you'd still be forking out home fees and maintenance.

If she can come back for A levels, or before, I'd suggest that. Even coming back for A levels only gives her two years ordinarily resident, not the three required - although a gap year would give her the extra year.

Thanks @titchy. That is precisely my concern. We also don't have the money for homes fees either unless we sell our home or cash in retirement savings/ take out personal loans, so I think we'll have to suck it up and go back.

I think going back for A-levels would give her a better chance of funding - it does make it easier to argue that we were only away for a short time.

*home fees
Really irritating autocorrect on this phone!

Perhaps some of the unis your DD is considering would give advice. I know from siting thru a talk with my DD that Edinburgh doesn't have a definition of what is temporary employment and considers case by case. Although I remember them saying you can't get around with multiple short term contacts and anything over a certain number of years is rarely considered temporary. Perhaps unis can give an indication in advance to help you decide whether to come home.

The problem is that even if the unis agree she's a home student, unless SLC does as well she's screwed.

It sounds like you shouldn't have a problem to me.

Have a look at the actual regulations, guidelines and case law. It's not too tricky to follow. We easily got home status and we didn't even have a home in the UK as we had sold our house. The main thing was my husbands work contract clearly stated he was employed as an expat. This was backed up by the fact we were only allowed to be in the overseas country on work visas.
I'm not sure I would trust the advice given on a Mumsnet thread for something this important TBH

You don't need to visit the UK and you don't need to come back for your daughter to do A levels if you are ordinarily resident in the UK.

Call Student Finance England. Don't mess around asking for info from strangers on the internet. Seriously.

We had been living in China for 10 years when my ds applied to go to university in the uk. We did not have a house in the uk and had not visited for years but he was given home fees as my dh’s contract stated he was a uk employee on a temporary contract (albeit one that had been renewed several times) in China and that residency in China was solely linked to this contract. The university wanted a copy of all dh’s contracts.
We did not apply for any loans to cover fees or maintenance at university so no experience with SLC.

@ShanghaiDiva

We had been living in China for 10 years when my ds applied to go to university in the uk. We did not have a house in the uk and had not visited for years but he was given home fees as my dh’s contract stated he was a uk employee on a temporary contract (albeit one that had been renewed several times) in China and that residency in China was solely linked to this contract. The university wanted a copy of all dh’s contracts. We did not apply for any loans to cover fees or maintenance at university so no experience with SLC.

This was similar to our experience. We had lived abroad as expats for even longer.

My understanding is that each uni's decision will differ depending on their interpretation of what is " ordinarily resident". What I would say is be prepared with whatever you can, you also can appeal a decision. We are in the same position but on standby to pay international fees if we have to but it's going to hurt a lot financially .

There is a lot on YouTube advising on what the criteria is. It also changes all the time. I've also heard of some cases where the child has gone back to study for A levels but then the parents stayed aboard and so the pupil was still treated as an international student because it hadn't been long enough .. I think it has to be three years.

Studying at a school in UK , with parents working overseas, will not necessarily qualify a student for home fee status.

When your daughter applies for her finance, she will be asked where she lived for the 3 years prior to the start of her course (1st September) If she is a UK national and can provide evidence that her time outside of the EU was temporary (i.e dad's temp work contract or visas) she should be ok. It is helpful if you can provide evidence of links to the UK during this time, bank statements, mortgage statement etc.

And SLC and universities often have different criteria re home student status.