Eight and a half years ago, the people of the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union.  Among many, many other consequences, that meant the UK voted to change the status of tens of thousands of European students from “domestic” to “international” students, with all the financial disadvantages that entailed.

You see, within the European Union all students, regardless of where they are from are considered “domestic”, and must be treated no differently that students from the country.  In the UK that meant students could pay tuition fees and access student assistance the way British students di – that is, free fees upfront with a very long debt repayment period.   And as for students coming in through the Erasmus program, they would pay whatever they would normally pay to their home institutions.

So Brexit was, in many respects, one of the greatest financial experiments ever conducted in global higher education.  What happens to demand when you take all that subsidy away and ask students to pay full freight instead?

With me today is Paul Wakeling, Professor of Education at the University of York in England.  He and a group of colleagues have been working to understand the mobility effects of Brexit: not just whether fewer European students attended UK universities, but which students came and where they went.  I heard him present on this issue recently at a conference in Luxembourg, and I knew this was a story we had to cover here on the podcast.  The results aren’t especially counterintuitive or anything, but it’s always good to have the full rundown on the damage that a policy of deliberate self-harm can inflict on a country’s higher education system.

And with that, let’s hear from Paul.

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The World of Higher Education Podcast
Episode 3.12 | From 36,000 to 12,000: Tracking the Decline in EU Students Post-Brexit with Paul Wakeling

Transcript

Alex Usher (AU): Paul, the paper that you and your colleagues wrote deals with the mobility of EU students to the UK, both pre- and post-Brexit. What did mobility look like post-Brexit? Was there still a lot of inflow from EU countries? How significant was it?

Paul Wakeling (PW): We’d seen about 20 years of continuous growth in the number of students coming to the UK from European Union countries. That growth was partly tied to the expansion of the EU in the early 2000s but continued steadily. By the year before Brexit fully took effect, there were around 36,000 EU students in the UK—roughly double what we’d seen two decades earlier. This was during a period of broader growth in international student numbers, with EU students making up about a third of all international students in the UK. The UK was one of the most, if not the most, popular destinations within the EU for students moving abroad.

AU: Within the EU, there’s the Erasmus program, which I believe has been around since 1989. My understanding is that under Erasmus, students pay tuition to their home universities, meaning students wouldn’t have paid much to study abroad. What role did Erasmus play in shaping student mobility before Brexit?

PW: There are actually two separate things here, Alex. First, there’s full-degree mobility within the EU. Under reciprocal agreements, a student going to another member state would be treated like a domestic student in that country. For instance, a French student coming to England would pay the same tuition fees as an English student, while a French student going to Scotland wouldn’t pay anything because there were no tuition fees in Scotland.

Second, there’s the Erasmus scheme, which is about partial-degree mobility. Erasmus students paid no fees to study part of their degree in another country. Interestingly, the UK was a net importer of Erasmus students. British students were less likely to study abroad unless it was part of a specific program, like a language placement year. Financially, the UK might have been a net loser under Erasmus, but academically, we gained a lot. Personally, I’ve taught many brilliant Erasmus students over the years. So the full-degree arrangement was interesting but, for example, UK tuition fees were still higher than what they would have been for students studying in other countries, for example Sweden.

AU: So, would those Erasmus students have been treated as domestic students for government funding purposes?

PW: Not exactly. Erasmus students were funded through the program itself, which was self-contained. In contrast, students coming to the UK for full-degree mobility were treated like domestic students. 10-15 years ago, there were student number controls in the UK, meaning universities had a set number of places, and EU students counted the same as UK students against those targets. When those controls were lifted, EU students simply became part of the student loan book for the UK government. In Scotland, where there were no tuition fees, they continued to have student number controls, which sometimes created tension. There was debate over whether EU students were displacing disadvantaged Scottish students, which wasn’t really the case in England.

AU: The UK voted for Brexit in June 2016, but the process took several years to 2020 before the UK left. What were the policy changes regarding EU students, and to what extent did universities have flexibility in implementing them?

PW: The major shift came in January 2021. Overnight, EU students went from being treated as domestic students to being classified as international students. This meant losing eligibility for UK government funding. For a student going to Scotland, for example, this meant moving from paying nothing to paying international fees of around £20,000 (about $23,000 USD) per year. In England, it meant losing access to income-contingent student loans and instead having to pay £20,000 or more upfront.

Technically, UK universities could have continued to charge lower fees to EU students, as they’re private entities that receive public funding. Some institutions experimented with discount schemes, but they wouldn’t have been eligible for state funding for those students. That was the principal change.

AU: This sounds a lot like what happened in Finland and Sweden in the decade before Brexit. Those countries introduced fees for non-EU students, leading to sharp initial drops in numbers, followed by gradual recovery. Was this pattern understood in the UK during the transition period? Did institutions prepare for the potential impact?

PW: No, not really. We all expected a significant drop, but there wasn’t much detailed planning or analysis. When we started writing this paper, we were surprised by how little research had been done on such a massive change. Most of the discussion was surface-level: “The numbers have gone down a lot—on to the next story.” There might have been some expectation that the losses could be offset by recruiting students from other countries. But Brexit coincided with the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, which unexpectedly led to a surge in international enrollments. For example, in my own department, we doubled our international intake in one year—from 300 to 600 students—which was both surprising and challenging.

AU: Let’s talk about your findings. What were the major changes? Were there differences between EU countries or UK institutions in how they were affected?

PW: The headline finding is no surprise: a huge drop in EU enrollments in the year following Brexit. Numbers fell from about 36,000 to 12,000 in one year—a dramatic hit across the board with all institutions effected. Every EU country except one saw significant declines. The exception was the Republic of Ireland, which has a unique reciprocal agreement with the UK that predates the EU. Irish students are treated as domestic students in the UK, and vice versa, so their numbers held steady and even increased slightly.

Among UK institutions, we saw a shift. Before Brexit, modern universities (formerly polytechnics) had been the most successful at attracting EU students, particularly in specific subject areas and overall had been growing. After Brexit, their numbers dropped sharply. Conversely, the Russell Group universities, which include elite institutions like Oxford, Cambridge, LSE, and my own university, York, were the least affected. They still saw declines but not as steep as others. Still a significant hit, but not quite the same as other institutions. Overnight, the Russell Group went from being the least likely destination for EU students, to the most after Brexit. Not because the Russell Group increased but because everyone else decreased so significantly.

AU: Where are those students going now? Are they staying home, or have they shifted to other countries like Canada, Australia, or elsewhere in Europe?

PW: That’s a great question, but we don’t have the data to answer definitively but we can speculate. Some students probably stayed home, especially if the UK’s appeal was tied to specific factors like low fees or English-language instruction. Other European countries, like Denmark and the Netherlands, offer programs in English, but there’s been a push in some places to prioritize teaching in national languages. We also noticed that a significant number of students from Southern and Eastern Europe—countries that are less economically-advantaged like Romania, Bulgaria, and Portugal—were coming to the UK for business-related courses. Those students may find it harder to access similar programs elsewhere in Europe, where English-taught business schools tend to be elite and expensive, outside the typical EU funding arrangements.

AU: What about UK institutions? How have they adjusted to this loss of EU students?

PW: Many have focused on recruiting students from other international markets, like China and India. China has been a staple for the UK for a long time and India has waxed and waned over time with some institutions having more success than other. There’s been quite a bit of emphasis in West Africa. Particularly Nigeria and Ghana have been a target because of historical links and English-language use. However, these markets come with challenges. For example, currency crises and UK policies limiting dependents have affected Nigerian student numbers recently. Some universities also tried discount schemes to retain EU students, offering scholarships or fee reductions. But these efforts were inconsistent, and by the second year post-Brexit, most of those schemes had disappeared, suggesting they didn’t work but we don’t have the data to say this for sure.

AU: So what’s the broader impact of all this on UK higher education? I mean, the BBC published something recently saying that three-quarters of UK institutions were in deficit this year, and international student numbers were partly to blame. But from what you’ve said, EU students weren’t necessarily a financial gain for universities—they sometimes cost more to teach than they brought in. So what’s the real impact here? Is it about finances, prestige, competitiveness, or something else?

PW: I think pedagogically, the impact has been significant. In my own teaching, we didn’t have large numbers of EU students, but just a handful in a class could make a huge difference. They’d bring unique perspectives and experiences, and it would really enrich discussions. For instance, in education, having students from different European systems provided a variety of examples to draw from. Across other disciplines, I’m sure this diversity was equally valuable.

In terms of the UK’s soft power, losing those connections with EU students is a real hit. There’s this annual discussion about how many world leaders studied in the UK, and with fewer EU students coming, those numbers will decline. Then there’s the more personal level—things like the so-called “Erasmus babies,” where people meet partners while studying abroad and later start families. That kind of cultural connection is being lost too.

Financially, it’s a mixed picture. You’re right that for some universities, EU students weren’t a huge financial gain—they were paying lower fees or even studying for free in Scotland. But they were still part of the broader international student mix. Now, with that market essentially gone, universities have fewer options to diversify their student intake, and that’s a problem in a sector that’s already financially strained. Is it the single cause of the financial issues we’re seeing now? No, but it’s definitely part of the broader challenges facing UK higher education.

AU: If you were a vice-chancellor during this period, how would you have responded to these challenges?

PW: After picking myself up off the floor and stopped crying, I think the first obvious move would have been discounting fees, which many institutions did try. But as we’ve seen, those efforts didn’t really work, and most of them disappeared within a year or two.

I think a more radical approach would have been collaboration—building bilateral agreements with key countries to maintain some flow of students. For instance, Romania was sending around 5,000 students per year to the UK before Brexit, which translates to 15,000 students over three years of study. That’s a substantial number. But setting up agreements like that would have been a lot of effort for uncertain returns, especially given the massive fee increases students were facing.

And that’s the key difference between what happened in the UK and the earlier changes in Finland and Sweden. In those countries, the fees introduced for international students were relatively modest and more in line with local costs of living. Here, students suddenly had to pay £20,000 per year. That’s £60,000 for an undergraduate degree, which is a huge financial barrier, particularly for students from less affluent EU countries. It’s hard to see how any institution could have fully mitigated that.

AU: Paul Wakeling, thank you so much for joining us today.

PW: Thank you.

AU: And thank you to our excellent producers, Tiffany MacLennan and Sam Pufek, and to you, our listeners, for tuning in. If you have any comments or suggestions for future episodes, please email us at podcast@higheredstrategy.com. Don’t forget to subscribe to The World of Higher Education Podcast on YouTube or your favorite podcast platform. Join us next week when our guest will be Gerard Postiglione from the University of Hong Kong. He’ll discuss a fascinating development: the rise of vocational universities. Bye for now.

*This podcast transcript was generated using an AI transcription service with limited editing. Please forgive any errors made through this service.