UK is Fifth Most Expensive Study Destination in the World

A survey in a 2018 report by the Independent has suggested that only one in three students think their tuition fees are good value for money, with the research from the Office for Students (OfS) also revealing that students become less confident about repaying their tuition fees and maintenance loans back as they get closer to joining the workforce. It reported that a majority of students (62 percent) don’t believe that their tuition fees are good value for money, although this varied depending on the degree.

The survey, which tested more than 60,000 students including recent graduates and school leavers, was published just weeks following the government’s announcement of its long-awaited review of university funding, with British Prime Minister Theresa May admitting that allowing universities to charge variable tuition fees – up to £9,250 a year – had left Britain with “one of the most expensive systems” in the world.

Some of the students who took part in the survey said they expect to be paying off the fees for the rest of their lives, and many expressed their dissatisfaction with the amount they’ll be required to spend from their own pockets throughout their studies; one student said: “We are required to print a lot of A3 pages, multiple times a year for presentations and hand-ins. We also need to buy our own equipment and materials for model making.

“Furthermore, we have yearly international study trips which are also very overpriced. If we were to pay for the exact same trip ourselves, it usually works out to be roughly half the price that we pay to the university.”

Despite the increasing number of UK students choosing to study abroad in the US – according to an article by The Economist which revealed that the number of British students going to university in the US has witnessed a rise of up to a third since 2010 – the research by Finder found that the US is indeed the most expensive study destination in the world, with minimum tuition fees at public universities starting at a whopping £19,000 per year.

Naturally, higher education – whether it be abroad or at home – doesn’t only cover tuition fees but also living costs, which students are required to pay for via their own personal means; this includes monthly rent, as well as costs of study utilities such as textbooks and stationery. For UK students choosing to study at home, this can often add up to extortionately high costs which many are struggling to keep up with, even leading some to take extreme measures in order to make ends meet.

However, students may be relieved to know that options to study anywhere in Europe and the rest of the world are plentiful, and will save them having to cash out large sums for higher education. To help with this, Finder provides an interactive page which lists all global tuition costs for UK students, including an interactive map which comprises of the world’s most popular study destinations, and provides the cost of living in each country for detailed estimates of what students should expect to pay each year.  

A look into Finder’s interactive page suggests that attractive study destinations which handily charge little or no money, include Denmark (where studying is completely free of charge for EU students and over 700 courses are taught in English), France, with its famous capital Paris coming fifth in the QS Best Student Cities 2018 ranking and courses costing a mere £170, and the Netherlands, where it costs just £1,752 for a year’s study and 60 percent of courses are taught in English.

Other study-abroad options for free tuition and low yearly living costs include Malta (£9,426), Greece (£8,472), Brazil (£6,965), and Argentina (£6,535).

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