British students eye study away from UK

Headteachers at British schools have warned that an increasing number of students are turning their back on UK universities and opting to study abroad instead.

A report in The Independent reveals that increasing tuition fees at UK universities – around £9,000 a year – are driving students to look overseas in search of better value for money for their education.

“We had 9 per cent of our students accepting offers from abroad,” Keith Budge, the headteacher at Bedale’s School, a boarding school in Hampshire, told the newspaper. “It has been at just about five per cent for about six or seven years.”

Figures such as this are expected to be seen at schools up and down the country over the coming months.

The United States – which offers generous scholarship programmes for talented students – is becoming an increasingly popular location for young British learners. In November it was revealed that more than 10,000 British students were attending education institutions in the United States during the 2013/14 academic year. This was a record number of Brits studying in America in one year.

Figures show that the top five US universities hosting UK students in 2013/14 were Harvard, Columbia, New York, University of California Berkeley and Yale.

And it’s not only America that British students are being drawn to Last year, Erasmus, the student exchange scheme for the EU, revealed they helped a record number of participants study abroad during the past academic year, including 15,000 Brits.

The deadline for applications to British universities via UCAS closes tomorrow.