In the UK, Universities have the right to charge “overseas rates” to non-EU students. Because of these rates, individual students have often seen their admission fees multiplied by ten, fifty or more, on the basis that they have not “resided” in the right country in the past. Each University is fully able to judge if a student should be charged such fees according to their own criteria, and the overseas rates themselves vary from one University to the next. The academic average of the student generally has nothing to do with this decision. Unfortunately, some students are taxed the overseas rates without proper justification. This article, written by a double Masters student, is destined to help students who have multiple citizenship – especially those who have a first citizenship which pertains to the EU and a second one which does not – avoid such a harrowing predicament.
For the multi-national student who wishes to avoid paying the outrageous overseas rates, the method is simple: they should omit their non-EU citizenship from any University administrative official. Multi-national students should not include their non-EU citizenship on any admission forms, or risk being charged “overseas rates.” Any Commonwealth agreements have strictly no jurisdiction as far as University admission rates are concerned, so students having a Commonwealth citizenship should omit that as well. In theory, if a student is imposed overseas rates, he may appeal, but this usually does not change the outcome of the University’s decision, as it has nothing to loose for attempting to gain overseas students who are willing to pay the rates.
An example: a student claims to have both the French and Australian citizenship. Most UK Universities will most likely charge him overseas rates, especially if he was born in Australia. If this student had only indicated his French nationality, and sent his French ID, he would have been entitled to the EU rates, which are usually much closer to the UK rates. Furthermore, UK Universities are not obliged to respect any official statement from foreign governments (embassy or other) regarding the place of residence of a student. Instead, they are free to establish their own arbitrary criteria regarding the status of the student to justify their overseas rates. They may, for example, state that one must have worked full-time in the EU for ten years to become a EU resident (which in turn would make full-time studying impossible in many cases).
This article, even though it criticizes unsaid administrative conventions, does not intend to devalue Universities in the UK. Simply, its goal is simply to help foreign students – although without guaranteeing anything – by informing them of some of the many obstacles which lie ahead.
