LONDON — Lydia Bruna, a young filmmaker from Germany, was considering doing her master’s degree at the prestigious National Film and Television School in Beaconsfield, just west of the British capital. Not only does the school have an international reputation, a British master’s would help her career in the United Kingdom — the European hub for filmmaking.
But a note on the fee page of the school’s website changed her plans. The note informed students from across the European Union that the school could not predict tuition fees past January 2019 — Bruna’s would-be fourth and final semester at the school. For now, Bruna is forgoing the advanced degree at a university in the U.K.
“Paying international fees would have been out of the question,” she said.
Thanks to existing treaties, students from the EU pay the same at universities in all EU member countries as do local students. But in what’s known as Brexit, the British public voted last year to exit the EU. Once the split between the U.K. and the EU is finalized — tentatively scheduled for the spring of 2019 — EU students will be treated like other foreign students, marking a change in status mostly felt first in the pocketbooks.
Bruna’s decision to skip a British master’s degree comes as politicians in the U.K. are having a wider debate on whether EU residents will have freedom of movement in the country after March 2019. Those who would come to the U.K. for its prestigious English post-secondary degrees, however, might be wondering whether they should bother.
As students prepare for school this fall, the impact of the Brexit vote is seen on U.K. campuses. Experts are worrying how Brexit will affect research grants, staffing, short-term academic exchanges, student aid and the overall quality of the country’s famous post-secondary education system. But one of the more immediate effects of the divorce might be that EU students, who represent nearly 6 percent of the 2.29 million students studying in the U.K., will look elsewhere to study abroad.
“I think that it hasn’t really sunk in for prospective students from EU countries,” said Ludovic Highman, who is studying the effect of Brexit on the British higher education industry sector at the University College of London‘s school of education. “It’s still too recent.”
British degrees carry tremendous respect: In some countries earning one is a tradition among upper-class families. Highman said the new rules will make them much less popular.
“People right now are becoming more aware that there are other countries offering English-speaking degrees.” In addition to Ireland, universities in EU member states Sweden and the Netherlands offer general undergraduate degrees entirely in English.
As British degrees become harder to access and more expensive, the smaller, lesser-known schools across the U.K. will be the ones to feel the impact more acutely, Highman said. “Definitely there is a feeling that universities that are in remote areas or less attractive cities might suffer more.”
Przemyslaw Biskup, a Polish researcher at the Institute of European Studies at the University of Warsaw, agrees that big name universities such as Cambridge or Oxford are less likely to suffer than middle-of-the road institutions. Among his compatriots living in Poland, most who go to England to study are financially well-off and unlikely to be deterred by higher tuition fees, access to financial aid or even more restrictive visa rules, he said.
“The value of British education is not just about education itself, it’s also about prestige, very well-confirmed language competence, these things are valuable in Poland.”
Experts are unsure of the economic impact if fewer EU students decide to study here. A recent study by Universities UK, a think tank funded by universities, found that foreign students — of which those hailing from the EU make up roughly 30 percent — brought some 25.8 billion pounds, or $33.5 billion, to the British economy in on- and off-campus spending in the 2014-2015 academic year.
Compared to last year, 2,800 fewer EU students applied for entry into British universities this fall, according to the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, or UCAS, a U.K.-based organization that oversees the application process for British universities.
The 7 percent drop comes on the heels of five years of growth. A report presented to the House of Commons, however, predicts a total loss in EU applications of up to 57 percent, once all the changes to policy have been announced.
At NFTS, the film school to which Bruna, the German student, did not end up applying, a year’s tuition costs roughly $18,000 both for British and — until Brexit is completed in the spring of 2019 — EU students. Foreign students pay about $38,000.
Besides much higher tuition fees, access to British students loans will also be affected by Brexit: As the EU students see their status change to regular foreign students, they are also forced to forgo much of the financial help offered to them now.
Currently 65 percent of full-time EU students in British universities who are eligible for U.K. loans use them.
Loans are important for Veronica Venco, 24, a native of Italy who has lived in the U.K. for three and a half years. She had planned to start studying history and economics to become a teacher in Britain. Although she said finding work and making a life is easier here than in her homeland, the rules governing EU students makes it impossible for her to study in her adopted homeland.
Instead, Venco is considering studies in Scotland, which will separate from the EU like the rest of the U.K., but has slightly lower tuition fees for overseas students. Critically for Venco, Scottish universities have a more inclusive student loan program.
If Scotland is a slightly preferable destination for some, Ireland, which is English speaking and a steadfast member of the European Union, has many of the advantages of the U.K. without any of the drawbacks brought by splitting from Europe.
Universities across Ireland have seen a spike in foreign applications. The University College Cork, for example, has seen a growth of 40 percent in international students last year. “Ireland is in an extraordinarily strong position internationally,” Patrick O’Shea, the president of University College Cork, told the Irish Times earlier in August.
Meanwhile, Venco expressed best the quandary before EU students and the U.K.’s higher education system. “We don’t know what’s going to happen.”
More from U.S. News
Financial Sector Pushing U.K. to Extend Brexit Negotiations
Learn More About the United Kingdom
Impact of Brexit Is Already Resonating Across U.K. Universities originally appeared on usnews.com
