The UK and the European Union have finally settled an agreement ensuring students “equal treatment”.
Although not every detail around education has been regulated, students on both sides will benefit from equal rights to health care, social benefits, education, and training. Anyway, this deal doesn’t rely on Erasmus exchanging programs, but he UK promised it will remain part of Horizons 2020 and Erasmus until the end of the EU budget period.
Talking about this achievement, the President of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker said:
“We have made sure that their rights will remain the same after the UK has left the European Union. This is, in particular, the case for EU citizens’ right to live, work and study”
Citizens from both sides must have a permit residence, but two parties agreed to have an available period for their people to submit their applications. Also, parties ensured there won’t be any “administrative burdens” when taking a permit residence.
Statistics from the 2015-2016 academic year show that EU students make up 5.5% of the total number of registered students, while 10% of all international students in the UK were enrolled in postgraduate studies.
In the last 10 years, the UK had an outstanding positive swing of international staff and students, a big majority of them coming from the EU member states, contributing millions of pounds to the local economy, meaning an unclear Brexit deal would affect them too negatively.
If you are an EU student interested in continuing your post-graduate studies in the UK in the near future, there is no need to worry about difficulties and administrative obstacles. The agreement is also great news for EU academic staff located in the UK obtaining the same assurances.
Earlier it was informed that Brexit, however, had a quite a significant effect. As soon as people were informed that the UK is officially going to leave the EU, university applications from EU students dropped by 7%. Some experts feared that the percentage of international students in the UK will go drop to at least 57% when the Brexit process is officially over. But with this deal set out on paper situation will probably positively change.