Adam Hussain becomes approximately to visit the university in 2013 while training fees within the UK almost trebled to £9,000. With additional loans for living prices, he realized he could incur money owed of £40,000. So whilst he noticed a television report of approximately an exodus of UK college students to the Netherlands, Hussain decided to attend an open day at Maastricht University. Annual prices have been €2,000 (then approximately £1, seven-hundred). That yr greater than 1,000 British freshers began college in the Netherlands.
“I already wanted to live abroad; when the better fees came in, it became a no-brainer,” says Hussain, 24, who attended an east London comprehensive. He chose a degree in European research and stated Maastricht became a surely exquisite and enriching enjoy. “It has had such an effect on the way I need to stay my life. And my schooling price a fraction of what I’d have in the UK.” But with Brexit on the horizon, the variety of students going abroad has plummeted. Maastricht University, one among the biggest recruiters from the UK, says programs dropped a quarter this 12 months, with the simplest 132 students joining last autumn. It expects a similar fall due to Brexit uncertainty.
And a British Council survey in 2017 discovered that the proportion of students considering analyzing abroad had dropped from 34% in 2015 to 18%. While the Brexit vote was especially blamed, “this could also be due to current barriers to uptake together with the fall in the cost of sterling and possibly increased safety worries,” says a British Council spokeswoman. LATELY, the UK government stated it’d boom fees for EU college students analyzing in Britain, whilst UK college students in the EU are likely to pay the excessive lessons fee charged to worldwide students. This has brought about calls for UK scholar loans to be made transportable so young human beings can use them to look at abroad.
The president of Maastricht University, Martin Paul, says that as the final results of Brexit stay unsure, “the manner wherein this influences training fees for prospective British students is still unknown. Much of this relies upon on future agreements between the European Union and the UK.” Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute (Hepi), says that if, after Brexit, EU college students analyzing in Britain do not have access to UK government scholar loans of £9,000 12 months, the spare mortgage pot ought to be used to inspire UK students to look at overseas.
He says: “As Brits, we are terrible at gaining knowledge of overseas languages and journeying overseas to examine and, after Brexit, our personal universities should come to be much less various. So it’s miles important to encourage college students to go abroad and display that we are still outward-searching united states.” But is it authentic that take a look at overseas makes students extra worldwide in their wondering and more attractive to employers? Yes, says Hussain, who lower back to London after graduation to paintings for a finance enterprise, then taught English in China, earlier than returning to Maastricht for a £2,000 master’s diploma in public coverage analysis. He graduates this yr and says that even as he looks abroad, he has fuelled his enthusiasm for working throughout the globe; it also had drawbacks.
“Some businesses certainly are seeking out people who’ve skilled worldwide environments,” he says. “In that manner, my diploma more suitable my employability.” Other employers, he says, maybe greater reluctant to tackle a graduate from a college they do now not realize. Yasmin Bentley, 25, who graduated from Maastricht in 2015 with a 2:1 in liberal arts and technological know-how, has the same opinion. “Studying abroad has opened many doorways but on the equal time closed a few from organizations that tend to recruit straight out of British universities,” she says.
