University of Leicester Freezes EU Student Fees

At present  EU, EEA and Swiss students pay the same fees as UK residents and are eligible for the financial loan to fund their studies, while non-EU students pay higher international fees. After Brexit, EU students may pay 50% more at UK institutions under the UK government plans.

The University of Leicester has decided that it will be freezing tuition fees for EU students after Brexit. The university has announced that EU, EEA, and Swiss student nationals will be exempted from paying increased tuition fees expected to be introduced after Brexit. It will become one of the UK’s first universities to keep the same fees and take on the additional cost next year.

For example, Leicester university says according to the newly introduced fees rules by the government, tuition costs for BEng Aerospace Engineering will increase from £9,250 to £21,515, and from £9,250 to £17,450 for BA Business and Management studies.

As University of Leicester welcomes many international students and a big proportion of those are from EU; the announcement has been positively welcomed by organizations that work with Leicester such as Andreas Kakouris, Cyprus High Commissioner who has worked with the university for many years.

Most importantly, the news is appreciated by the students themselves. Like many other students, Andrea Alvarez Lamas a third-year Criminology student, age 20, from Spain, said he felt so lucky about coming to the university before Brexit because he would have never been able to afford the higher fees.

Currently, 450,000 students from the overseas study at UK universities each year, with about one-third from EU countries. The students from the EU will be subject to higher tuition fees from the academic year 2021/22. The number of enrollments from those students is more likely to decrease due to this fact.