Distinguished Members of Eurasian Universities Union,
It was obviously one of the major concerns of last summer in Europe as well as the rest of the world if United Kingdom was going to leave or remain in the European Union.
As of the announcements on 24th of June it was clarified that slightly more than a half of British population would like their country to be no longer a member of EU. So the voting was basically resulted that the acronym of Brexit that represents exit of Britain came true.
Apart from the political, economic and social aspects we would like to focus on the impacts of Brexit on higher education since it has recently started to show up with the inconveniences and new arrangements.
First of all the question mark that comes out is the situation of the students from EU countries who currently study in the UK. Prior to the Brexit the EU students were financially considered same as the native students where they were exempt from the fees to be paid by oversea students.
However Brexit shall cause to separate the EU students from the locals as there will not be anything legally binding United Kingdom and rest of Europe. This clause was actually clarified for the existing EU students at least. As it was published on EURAS.EXPRESS on 29th of October Minister Jo Johnson declared that the students from EU countries who started their higher education earlier than Brexit will continuously pay the same amount as the British students. Moreover it was also pointed out by the Minister that the ones they start in the academic year 2017/18 will be eligible to apply for the loans and grants.
On the other hand the future EU students might face a quite different scenario which can possibly result a decreasing number of EU applicants to study somewhere in the United Kingdom. Mainly the financial reductions will no longer be valid for the non-British students which usually referred to nearly 70 percent of the total under or postgraduate education fee. Thereof Brexit can also mentally and identically cause EU students to lead into a misunderstanding when making their choices regarding their higher education.
As it was taken place on University World News applications from EU countries based on medicine, dentistry in the whole of UK and based on all faculties at universities of Oxford and Cambridge was decreased approximately 9 percent by now. This can actually be considered as signals for the future how Brexit will have a role on higher education.
The status of the academic and administrative staff from European Union countries who currently work in United Kingdom should be also noted in terms of Brexit of EU which can help us have predictions about the future of higher education in the UK after Brexit.
Ultimately we would like to state that as we have reviewed it on our publications plenty of times we will be closely following up Brexit’s impacts on higher education through Eurasian aspect since it is a major, crucial and quite actual key issue related to Europe and Asia containing higher education.
Your sincerely,
Eurasian Universities Union