Brexit: Agency view varies but loan funding crucial in EU
Published 30/06/2016
Access to student loan funding for many EU students will be critical to ensure enrolment continues at university-level in the UK beyond the two-year guarantee period that Universities Minister Jo Johnson has offered assurance on, according to education agencies placing significant volumes of students in the UK.
Other agencies have signalled concern around perceptions of safety but in South America it is business as usual, if not better in a post-Brexit outcome. Meanwhile non-EU agencies have voiced distant hopes that visa settings may improve in the future if the EU student market shrinks.
According to Tereza Fulfaro, director at major agency CI in Brazil, there was a positive impact in Brazil, with the value of the pound dropping against the real by 15%.
“For us, it’s positive because of the pound,” she said. “And we have to take advantage. The schools did the same. I received millions of email marketing on Friday [24 June], saying ‘Now is the time to go to the UK’ and we did the same because I think we may recover some of the market that was lost because the high value of the pound.”
But while Fulfaro acknowledged a possible uplift for ELT from Brazil, and no fallout from the political schism between the UK and EU (“we have a country divided as well”), Josef Kysilka, a director of global agency network Information Planet, spoke about his view of the Czech Republic and Slovak markets.
“For us, it’s positive because of the pound”
He said that the market for English language training had eroded and the UK had become a much more popular destination for undergraduate study, given favourable terms for loan funding offered by the UK’s Student Loans Company, as per EU rules, with adjusted repayment terms depending on nationality. As loan funding for postgrad study had been made available for this academic year, the postgrad market also developed, he said.
“The general outlook is not that bad,” he said, underlining that the British Ambassador had appeared on TV in the Czech Republic to reassure on safety concerns. But he said that looking beyond the two-year mark, if loan funding ceased to be available, “then students will disappear”.
“In Denmark it’s free to study, in Sweden and Holland, you pay [low fees] and we still receive commission from those institutions,” Kysilka added, noting that the appeal of Scandinavian destinations will increase if the UK becomes too expensive, as will Canada, Australia and New Zealand.
“In the last year and a half, we have seen a lot of interest in [higher education] study in the UK,” he said, “and UK institutions have spent an enormous amount of money on marketing, which has been wasted in a way [if funding ceases].”
“But in an economic sense, I am optimistic. I hope the UK will remain tied to the EU economically and education belongs there too.”
Could the long-term impact of Brexit be better visa policy settings for international students?
Kysilka questioned the loan repayment salary threshold set by the UK’s SLC as being too high in some Eastern European countries, suggesting that if repayment was required at a lower salary threshold, “the UK would get more money back. It’s almost like they didn’t do enough research.” He added that many graduates from Eastern Europe stayed and contributed to the UK’s economy.
At SI-UK, another education counselling company with offices in multiple countries including the UK, Orion Judge, co-founder and global operations director, concurred with Kysilka on the “prime concern for EU students is the issue of funding of their studies”.
“SI-UK has sent out an email to all our EU students to let them know that Jo Johnson has assured EU students that funding and status will continue as normal for at least the next two years,” he said.
“Prime concern for EU students is the issue of funding of their studies”
He agreed too that in South America, “Brexit has actually been welcomed there”, but he forecast a long-term “dampening effect” on enrolment at university level “unless the government comes out to support the sector with an initiative such as a two-year post-study work visa.”
In India, this same wish was echoed by Natasha Chopra, managing director at The Chopras, one of the biggest education counselling companies in the country, placing over 10,000 students annually.
“Our own reading is that once Brexit actually is a reality, and that is some two or more years away, and as a consequence EU students traffic to British universities dries up, institutions will be desperate to make up the lost revenue / seats and the pressure on the government of the day will be intense enough for them to reconsider the entire student visa and work opportunities policy,” she said.
In the short-term, however, she signalled concern that students are changing their study plans because of safety concerns in the immediate aftermath of Brexit.
“We have had a number of students across the country raise their concerns. These range from racial tensions that we are all reading about as well as the impact on internationalisation of UK campuses,” she told The PIE News.
“A number of students who were supposed to confirm UK as their study destination choice are taking up other offers from countries such as Singapore and Australia. This is really not good news and is now becoming a worrisome scenario.”
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