Study Abroad Could Be A Solution for UK Students.

The rising tuition are forcing many to look for Universities overseas, as shown by the thousands attending the first Student World Fair.
Inside Arsenal’s football ground, the mood is ugly. Not because of a controversial refereeing decision, or even the team’s failure to win a trophy since 2005. But because of the increase in UK university tuition fees.

Last November, the students of Britain had their say, through the medium of stoved-in windows and flying fire extinguishers. Last weekend, it was their parents’ turn – only instead of smashing up the streets, they came to the Emirates Stadium in north London, for the first Student World Fair. And they were in a determined mood.

Word is now spreading fast that, compared with the UK figure of £9,000 a year, fees at some European universities are as low as £640 a year, as at the École Normale Supérieure in Paris (rated 28th in the QS University World rankings), or £1,000 at the Technical University of Munich (rated 54th).

And though American universities generally charge more than here (up to £25,000 a year), applications from British students have still risen by one-third in the last year. Queues stretched round the block at last month’s US Universities Open Day in Kensington, with waiting parents swapping tales of 20 per cent-off scholarships.

But it’s not just Uncle Sam’s finest that want our boys and girls. Academic institutions all over the world are realising that Britain’s parents are angry and ready to send their offspring overseas, as proved by the fact that 3,000 people registered to attend this Student World Fair. And it’s only on for one day.

“It’s obscene, what’s happened to university fees in this country,” growls pensions consultant and father-of-three Ray Davis, here today with his son Adam, 15.

“What annoys me is that some people aren’t going to be affected. Rich people won’t notice the fees increase, and people who haven’t got the money will be well supported by the State. It’s just those in the middle, like me, who are going to be squeezed.”

And the sound of pips squeaking can be heard all round the exhibition hall: the representatives of the 52 foreign universities here are keen to stress the breadth of subject choice, academic rigour and the general leafiness of the campus at their various institutions. The parents, though, are mostly interested in the fees.

“The prospect of paying £9,000 a year fills me with horror,” says teaching assistant Karen Frearson, down for the day from Derby with her daughter Hana, 17. “As for Hana, ever since the fees increase was announced, she has been put off going to university. It’s only in the past two weeks that she’s been able to contemplate it again, which is why we’re here. I think she’d like to go to university in Italy.”

All round the exhibition, you can see this same scenario being played out: young people envisaging themselves at faraway foreign places (University of West Indies at Montego Bay: £9,400 a year; Doshisha Institute for the Liberal Arts, Kyoto: £8,000 a year), and parents visualising only insuperably large pound signs. But that doesn’t stop offspring from wishing.

“Cuba or Australia would do me fine,” beams 18-year-old Lexley Braid, from Solihull.

“I’m planning to go to America on a football scholarship,” says her friend, Jade Nash, 17, who plays for Leafield Athletic, one of the top women’s teams in the Midlands. “At the moment, I’m trying to get as big a discount on the fees as I can.” (US sports scholarships can cut fees by as much as 75 per cent.)

Other youngsters are targeting colleges in Europe, especially Dutch universities, which are attracting large crowds of enquirers. Take the Hogeschool van Arnhem en Nijmegen, or HAN University of Applied Sciences, as it’s known. It may not have the international reputation of Harvard or Yale, but it does offer British students two show-stopping attractions.

First, the fees are just 1,784 euros a year (about £1,500). Second, all courses are taught in English. And afterwards a job is almost certain.

“Ninety per cent of our graduates get a job in their chosen field within two months of leaving us,” says HAN’s Arthur Appelman.

At the Canadian sector of the hall, meanwhile, good job prospects are also tempting some inquiries, though the fees are significantly higher. “You’ll be paying between 14,000 and 18,000 Canadian dollars (£8,650-£11,500) for tuition fees, with a total bill for the year around 25,000-30,000 Canadian dollars (£15,500-£18,500),” says Rick Lewis, of Grant MacEwan University, in Edmonton.

If those sums are off-putting, other countries’ universities are far more affordable. “We had heard about the rise in your fees, and thought we would come here and test the water,” says Zane Purlaura, from Riga Technical University, in Latvia (fees £1,205 a year).

“Before, we have had to go to exhibitions where all the other universities were from the UK. People would come up to us and ask in which part of Britain they could find Riga. This Student World Fair is the first where all the colleges have been non-UK.”

It won’t be the last, either. “We saw there was a gap in the market for this kind of event,” says the show’s organiser Marcus Dalziel. “There’s no doubt that the fees increase has made British people more open to the idea of foreign universities.”

Whether this leads to a full-scale exodus of UK students remains to be seen. “I’m going to wait and see,” says parent Ray Davis. “It’s possible, I suppose, that the best British students will gravitate instead to those UK universities that aren’t charging the full £9,000.”