nationalunionofstudents – View From A Bridge – management, education and personal thoughts

Un-civil War for UK Universities If Welsh Break Ranks on EU Fees?

A tweet from Chris Marshall, Head of Policy and Strategy, at Swansea University on 6 January suggested that the first shots may have been fired in the battle to lure EU students to Wales when their fee status changes to ‘international’ later in 2021. The sub-text and purported THE headline is that the “Move sets Wales apart from rest of UK post-Brexit”. It implies that the Welsh Government is legislating, or planning to legislate, to mandate differential fee treatment for EU students attending Welsh universities which would probably provide legal protection from the anti-discrimination principles of the Equality Act 2010.

Just a word of caution. The link to the timeshighereducation.com source lead me to a page that read You don’t have permission to access this page.and a search of the THE web-pages does not find the article. It seems possible that someone jumped the gun, that the website has not updated or that the story, for some reason, never appeared.

If the Welsh Government does legislate in a way that gives legal cover for EU students being charged the same fee rate as Home students it may be the starting gun in a race to level the playing field in the UK. Those with long memories in UK higher education will recall the period when the post-study work rules in Scotland were more benevolent and seen as a boon for international student recruitment north of the Border. There seems little doubt that legislators in England, Scotland and Northern Ireland would come under pressure to allow the same benefit if Wales makes a break.

It would probably be a relief for Swansea University who management of their current preferential treatment of EU students seem a bit convoluted. The main fees page states, “Your Tuition Fees will be chaged (sic) at the same rate as International students” but the Undergraduate Scholarships page tells us there will be an “automatic discount to tuition fees for EU students that join us in the academic year 2021/22 and will reduce the fees to the same level as UK tuition fees”. Perhaps this is just an attempt to spare the feelings of other international students who will be paying £5,550 a year more for a course in, say, Business Law, LLB (Hons).

Another version of the preferential pricing is seen at Bangor University which has a £5,000 EU student scholarship for EU undergraduate students in 2021/22 – with the spin that £2,500 is off fees and £2,500 is off university accommodation. The difference between the International fee for a BA in Business Studies and the Home fee is £6,000 so it nearly makes up the difference. Maybe there is a hope that having a ‘scholarship’ split between fee and accommodation is a way of defending a legal challenge on discriminatory pricing?

There may well be other variations on these themes but the trend for many universities reviewed in England and Wales appears to be to proclaim on the international fees page that EU students will be subject to international fees from 2021/22. The underlying blanket sweetener, discount, scholarship or bursary for students from 27 European countries is offered discretely, some might also say discreetly, on a separate page. It all seems less than transparent and might suggest that there are deliberate attempts to keep the preferential treatment of students from Europe under the radar.

Checking the Government Position

In a written statement from Kirsty Williams, the Minister of Education for the Welsh Government, on 10 August 2020 said that EU students ‘will not be eligible for support or, in the case of higher education courses, home fee status’ after 1 August 2021. A search of the Welsh Government pages shows a new statement on the fee situation (6 January, 2020) which says ‘the Welsh Government will provide support to EU, EEA and Swiss nationals who benefit from citizens’ rights under the various withdrawal agreements.’

The European Union statement on Citizens’ Rights under the Withdrawal Agreement says that ‘The Withdrawal Agreement protects those EU citizens lawfully residing in the United Kingdom, and UK nationals lawfully residing in one of the 27 EU Member States at the end of the transition period.’ This does not, however, include EU students who are resident in the EU.

The ‘citizens’ rights’ question relating to fees was also answered by Michele Donelan in October 2020 when she indicated that “current EU principles of equal treatment will continue to apply for those covered by the citizens’ rights provisions in the Withdrawal Agreement”. It is difficult to see that the Welsh statement makes allowances for a significantly wider group than has already been accounted for in England. The devil, as always, is in the detail and the intentions of Governments are not always clear so I would be very happy to have authoritative guidance on the issue and whether the statement from the Welsh Government makes a material difference.

Legal, Moral or Ethical?

A material change in legislation would, of course, save the blushes of English universities currently planning to discriminate in favour of EU students against other international students. But it would not save the moral dilemma of advantaging students from Europe over those from Asia, Africa and the Americas. Neither would it satisfactorily respond to international students who have long held the view that they are exploited by universities to subsidize home students.

What the THE did write about on 6 January was that UK universities were ‘‘weighing options’ on EU Student Fee Discounts”. In the article Smita Jamdar, head of education at Shakespeare Martineau, suggests that “in my mind there’s a question over whether ‘EU national’ really is a nationality-based discrimination”. There is also a suggestion that transitional arrangements could be considered a proportionate response to the changing situation for EU students.

It’s all interesting stuff that will play out over the coming year but thus far the vast majority of universities have decided to charge EU students international fees for 2021/22. When a university chooses to significantly increase the price of a course from year to year there are not usually ‘transitional arrangements’ for new students. It is also difficult to argue that EU students have not had fair warning of their likely change of status given the Government’s General Election promise to complete Brexit.

It really is about time that the organizations with an interest in students – Office for Students, National Union of Students, UKCISA and others – got to grips with the situation. Clarity would be a very good thing but so would some considered responses on how differential pricing is equitable even as a transition measure. At the very least, universities might be challenged to indicate the timetable for any transition rather than allowing a systemic, divisive and discriminatory system by default.

Image by David Peterson from Pixabay

Jeopardy for UK Universities – Part 2

Responses to an earlier blog showing that, post-Brexit, a number of UK universities would continue to offer all European Union students preferential tuition fee status over international students suggested it was worth digging deeper. It’s also worth considering what the consequences might be if a group of international students or the National Union of Students decided to test whether a university’s blanket discount for EU students was discriminatory. The recruitment implications for pathway operations if some university partners provide preferential fees for EU students is another dimension for consideration.

Research on university websites suggests that universities planning to give EU students the same tuition fee as UK students in the 2021 academic year include:

Bedfordshire	Buckinghamshire
Solent	Leicester
West London	Royal Holloway
De Montfort	Portsmouth
Oxford Brookes	Nottingham Trent

In most cases the intention is clearly stated but there are more subtle versions of preferential pricing such as the University of Gloucestershire where details are buried in the 2021/22 Fee and Bursary Policy (on page 14 of 19). It notes that “The International Grant Award is a tuition fee waiver of £3,000 deducted from your first year’s tuition fee” while the “EU Grant Award is a tuition fee waiver of £3,000 deducted from each year”. So, an EU undergraduate student on a three-year degree course gets the benefit of an additional £6,000 of grant “automatically awarded at the point of offer”.

Some of the university websites are so Delphic or poorly organized that it is difficult to confirm their position one way or another so the list may not be comprehensive. At least 13 universities reviewed do not seem to be in a position to show fees for 2021/22 or say they are awaiting further information from the Government. These include some surprisingly big players:

Coventry	Northumbria
Cambridge	Liverpool
University of the Arts, London	Brunel*
Queen Mary	Loughborough
Greenwich	SOAS
Brighton	Hertfordshire
London South Bank

*A source has indicated that Brunel are offering the same rate to EU as Home students in 2021 but I am unable to verify this on the website.

The legal consequences seem ill-defined and it remains possible that last minute Government action might change the situation. Scotland has already decided that post-Brexit it could not legally continue to offer EU students the same, free tuition as Scottish students. Edinburgh University is publishing 2021/22 fees that have three rates – those for Scottish students, Home/Rest of UK, and International/EU. This would suggest that the university sees little room for manoeuvre in maintaining even the Home/Rest of UK for European Union students.

Legal analysis is very thin on the ground with the Time Higher Education article by Elizabeth Jones of Farrer and Co being an exception and the piece does not run to exploring remedies that might arise if the differential fees are illegal. The university would, presumably, be obliged to honour its contract with the EU students to charge them at home rates so could not change that arrangement. If that is the case then it is possible they might be required to reduce fees for all other international students to the same level.

As an example, the difference for De Montfort would be around £5,000 a year per student. HESA data for 2018/19 indicates that the University had 1,020 EU and 2,025 other first degree, full time international students so, if one took a third of the latter number that could suggest around 675 first year international undergraduate students and, therefore, a potential cost of £3.375m a year in lost fees if they had to be charged at the lower rate. There are many ‘ifs’ involved in the calculation and I am happy to make any corrections needed if an authoritative source is able to say how much is at stake.

There’s also the interesting matter of what international students who are attending a course with a commercial pathway provider have been advised about their fees. Just as an example, De Montfort is aligned with Oxford International Education Group (OIEG) which offers an integrated degree – the student can either study an International Year Zero (IYZ) and then go on to do three years with the university or an International First Year (IFY) and go on to do two years with the university.

The point is that the OIEG website shows the “International or Tier 4 Visa students” fee for IYZ at £14,995 for 2020/21 and 2021/22 and for the IFY at £14,995 in 2020/21 rising to £15,995 in 2021/22. EU students on the same courses are being charged £9,250 in 2020/21 and the 2021/22 fees are not yet announced. Commercial providers in a similar situation may soon have to choose whether to continue to offer wholescale preferential rates on the basis of nationality.

Some pathway operations have grown large numbers of EU students into their operation with the lure of being charged the same as Home students when they go on to the university to complete their degree an important sales points. For example, the 2018 QAA Report on the Navitas pathway operation with Anglia Ruskin University (ARU) noted, “The significant growth in student numbers at the Cambridge College, based on recruitment of home and EU students, is a trend that the Provider is looking at in relation to other colleges.” Individual course pages suggest that ARU is currently planning that in 2021/22 EU students will be considered international but that could be tested if other universities and their partners appear to be successful in their recruitment efforts with preferential fees.

It would be good to see the UK Government confirm its position so that UKCISA and universities have to provide certainty to students about the fees they will pay. This is also a moment where the NUS could step up to ensure that international students are being treated equitably. The current situation was wholly foreseeable and organizations that are meant to have student interests at heart are only noticeable by their absence.

If universities offering lower EU fees are successful in their recruitment efforts it does not take a great leap of imagination to see how this could become widespread across the sector. It would mean universities choosing (rather than being obliged by Government) to embed preferential treatment based solely on nationality into their recruitment processes. That seems an unfortunate consequence which should be challenged at the earliest opportunity.

Jeopardy for UK Universities Giving EU Students Financial Preference

Anyone who thought that “Brexit means Brexit” or that all UK universities would accept that EU students no longer have special protection on tuition fee levels should think again. Some institutions are publicizing that EU students starting in Autumn 2021 will pay Home student fees for the duration of their studies. Some suggest it may be illegal and for international students from other countries it will reinforce a suspicion that Euro or Western-centric policies, pricing and priorities continue to prevail in some English institutions.

The straightforward fact is that if you are a student from China, India, Nigeria, Brazil, Canada or anywhere outside the EU, there are at least six universities in England who have decided to charge you a significantly higher tuition fee to sit alongside an international student from a European Union country in the 2021/22 academic year. It is a distinction not based on that student’s language capability, their government’s contribution to English higher education, their intelligence, or their capacity to pay. The privileged treatment applies, without any form of means testing, to students from some of the wealthiest countries in the world.

A review of the 40 English universities with the most European Union students (HESA, 2018/19) shows that five have either maintained EU rates at the same level as UK students or put in place special ‘scholarships’ that have the same effect.

University	Number of EU Students	University Statement
Bedfordshire	1,725	Approved-schedule-of-mainstream-fees-2021-22-081220.pdf (beds.ac.uk)
Solent	1,310	Following the UK government’s confirmation that EU students will no longer be eligible for home fee status benefits, we’ve made the decision to keep EU tuition fees the same as UK tuition fees for 2021 entry.
West London	1,240	No statement – shown on fee schedules
De Montfort	1,175	DMU recognise the challenges this brings for our prospective EU students, and therefore for undergraduate EU students commencing their course in the academic year 2021/22 an automatic discount will be applied to reduce their undergraduate fees to £9,250 for the duration of their course.
Portsmouth	1,120	If you’re an EU, EEA or Swiss national or an EU national with settled status in the UK, starting a course in the academic year 2021/22 or later years, you will no longer be eligible for the same fees as UK students. You’ll pay the same fees as an international student. But a Transition Scholarship will be applied to your fees reducing them to the same amount as UK students.

A sixth, the University of Kent, which dubs itself “The UK’s European University”, has put in place a blanket 25% reduction on the international fee level. Seven others currently either indicate that they cannot confirm fee liability or do not have any 2021/22 academic year fees shown on their websites. Among these is Coventry University which, with over 3,600 EU students in 2018/19, has a lot at stake.

Beneath the top 40, Royal Holloway, University of London, was among the first universities to indicate its intention to maintain EU student fee levels in 2021/22. Their online statement suggests good intent as they note, “At Royal Holloway, we wish to support those students affected by this change in status through this transition. For eligible EU students starting their course with us in September 2021, we will award a fee reduction scholarship which brings your fee into line with the fee paid by UK students.” The institution is keeping its options open for the 2022 intake and a cynic might suggest it will see how enrollment goes before deciding whether to extend the reduction.

While the argument about support through transition sounds good universities do not, generally, take on wholesale financial risks incurred by students as circumstances change. Students often find that the currency exchange rate goes against them during the course of undergraduate study, in the case of Indian students by around 18% between September 2017 and July 2020, but universities don’t cover the cost. Giving a blanket dispensation on fees to favour students from 27 countries is unheard of and a cynic might argue that it is driven by enrollment objectives more than anything else.

It also raises the question about the nature of the cross-subsidy that non-EU international students might be giving to the new class of “EU international” students. The Migration Advisory Committee report of September 2018 made the point that, “There is no doubt that international students offer positive economic benefit, including cross-subsidising the education of domestic students and research.” This suggests that allowing EU students to continue paying “home” fees will mean that their full-rate international student peers will be subsidizing them.

Relatively little has been written about the legality of this type of favouritism for one group of international students over another. In July 2016 Elizabeth Jones, a senior associate at Farrer & Co, wrote for Times Higher Education that “Universities are required by the Equality Act 2010 to treat students in a way that does not discriminate on the grounds of any “protected characteristic” such as race (which includes nationality), age, sex and disability.” She noted that providing students from the rest of the EU with the same fees as UK “home” student fees was, at the time, an allowable exception because it was mandated by legislation.

A statement by Michelle Donelan, Minister of State for Universities made it clear that this mandate no longer existed. “Following our decision to leave the EU, EU, other EEA and Swiss nationals will no longer be eligible for home fee status…for courses starting in the academic year 2021/22.” In July 2020, Gerrit Bruno Blöss, CEO of Study.eu, commented on the damaging impact this could have but noted that, “A few institutions are also evaluating potential legal loopholes to charge different fees.” Perhaps they found them or simply decided that nobody would notice or dispute their decision.

The UK Council for International Student Affairs (UKCISA) is simply publishing Donelan’s statement and reflecting that further guidance on regulations from Government may not come before the Student Loans Company (SLC) system launch in February 2021. It is surprisingly coy, given its remit as “the UK’s national advisory body supporting international students” about whether maintaining a significant price differential between two groups of international students is fair, decent or appropriate. It claims every UK university as a member and must know that some institutions are publicising their 2021/22 academic year pricing strategy on that premise.

UKCISA’s 2020 Policy Position Paper notes that a key part of delivering a world class student experience is communicating “a clear message of welcome to all international students in the UK, at every level of study”. That seems quite difficult if the system becomes underpinned by preferential treatment for students from the EU without real clarity on what makes such exceptions equitable or even reasonable. This is particularly so when so many other institutions have made it clear that the ‘international’ fee will apply to EU students from the 2021 academic year.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the Office for Students (OfS) is silent on the issue. It has been pointed out elsewhere that the OfS shows a level of disinterest in whether international students get value for money from a UK education. Perhaps they could provide comparative information to at least fulfil their promise to “ensure that all students are provided with the necessary information, advice and guidance so that they can make informed decisions about where and what to study.”

It’s also not clear where the National Union of Students stands on this anomaly. Back in 2013 their position was that, “It is scandalous that non-EU students are charged fees that can be thousands of pounds higher than those for other students.” One would think that they would at least expect everyone designated an international students to receive equal treatment from universities.

With the pandemic and Brexit diverting attention it may not seem important that a handful of universities have gone out on a limb to preserve a point of privilege for EU students. But reputation is hard to gain and easy to lose. It’s time for the UK authorities to clarify the situation and possibly for Messrs Sue, Grabbitt and Runne to become involved.

NOTE

In principle I am in favour of all education being free and would welcome a situation where universities were able to focus only on teaching, learning and research in the interests of students and broader humanity. This blog reflects the realities of international student fees and the potential for preferential treatment to emerge when universities make decisions driven by economic factors.

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