Returning to Erasmus ‘will benefit mid-tier UK universities’

Short-term placements a chance to rebuild EU links and campus diversity but could also ‘reshape demand in ways that challenge current financial models’

Published on
December 19, 2025
Last updated
December 19, 2025
Patrick Jack
A spectator wrapped in a British Union flag shelters from the sun with an umbrella near the Paris 2024 Olympic Games Concorde stadium venue in Paris, France, 2024. To illustrate the return of the Erasmus+ programme.
Source: Nathan Laine/Bloomberg via Getty Images

The return of the Erasmus+ programme may prove particularly beneficial for mid-tier universities which lost significant numbers of students from the European Union post-Brexit, according to experts.

The Westminster government announced this week that it will rejoin the short-term student exchange scheme in 2027-28 with UK students able to study in the EU without paying extra fees, and vice versa. The UK left the scheme in 2020 after Brexit, and EU students have paid full international tuition fees since 2021-22.

Analysis of data from the Higher Education Statistics Agency (Hesa) shows that the number of EU students in UK institutions has halved since then – falling from 152,930 in 2020-21 to 74,490 in 2023-24.

Among large institutions, only a handful have increased EU student numbers, with others seeing large declines – particularly University College Birmingham (86 per cent down) and Coventry University (85 per cent down).

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Others to have suffered the biggest declines include University of Wales Trinity Saint David (82 per cent), University of Bedfordshire (79 per cent) and Southampton Solent University (78 per cent).

Diana Beech, director of the Finsbury Institute, a public policy research unit at City St George’s, University of London, told Times Higher Education that the sharp fall in EU student numbers has hit “mid-tier, teaching-focused universities hardest”.

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“For these institutions, the return of Erasmus is likely to be particularly significant as it offers a way to rebuild EU student inflows and restore campus diversity. Elite universities, by contrast, already have strong global appeal, so the marginal benefit of Erasmus will be much smaller for this part of the sector.”

The scheme could bring benefits across the board by guaranteeing year abroad opportunities to home students on modern languages courses and offering a lifeline to departments at risk of closure, she added.

But Beech said the long-term impact of rejoining the scheme is uncertain because placements could either encourage EU students to return to the UK for postgraduate study, or may satisfy that demand entirely and reduce interest in profitable master’s courses.

“While the return of Erasmus will undoubtedly help UK universities to rebuild connections and campus communities, it may also reshape demand in ways that challenge current financial models.”

Nick Hillman, director of the Higher Education Policy Institute, said he was pretty certain that the UK’s re-entry to Erasmus will “make little difference to universities’ bottom lines”. 

“The Erasmus money will subsidise the teaching and living costs of Erasmus participants but may not cover all the costs in full.”

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And he added: “If you can come here cheaply as part of your degree in your own home country as part of Erasmus, why would you opt to come here expensively for, say, a taught master’s and pay full international fees later on?”

Hesa data shows that just 28,375 new entrants from the EU came to UK institutions in 2023-24. But official Erasmus figures show that over 16,000 EU students joined UK institutions through Erasmus in 2019-20. About 9,900 UK students went the other way – with the universities of Glasgow, Bristol and Edinburgh the largest providers.

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“Aside from losing out on the direct benefits to participants, UK absence from Erasmus compounded the damage to universities from Brexit,” said Simon Sweeney, a professor of international political economy at the University of York.

“Leaving Erasmus sent a signal that the UK didn’t welcome EU students. Numbers coming here from the EU collapsed right across the sector. This meant lost undergraduate income, as well as from postgraduates and research students.”

Sweeney said quitting Erasmus was a blow to the UK’s reputation as a welcoming and high-quality environment, and that rejoining the scheme is “good news for all universities, including the less prestigious ones”.

“Only a handful in recent years could successfully charge extremely high international fees for EU students. The sector as a whole lost out, and will gain from a sustained effort to rebuild our reputation as a welcoming environment for EU students.”

Separate Hesa figures for Scotland and Wales show that some elite universities were able to make more money from EU tuition fees in 2023-24 than they were in 2020-21 by charging more.

Despite a similar number of EU students, the University of St Andrews increased its income from this cohort from £5.6 million to £14.4 million over this period. But income fell from £3.1 million to just £259,000 at Edinburgh Napier University and from £2.3 million to £423,000 at Glasgow Caledonian University.

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patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com

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Reader's comments (9)

#1 Submitted by wayne.... on December 19, 2025 - 8:52am
I am little confused as to why people think the return to Erasmus+ will dramatically change things. Whilst it may be positive for relations with the EU, and the number of EU students gaining opportunity to come to the UK, I am not sure how it will open up more opportunities for UK students to study abroad, unless there is more funding available. I may have missed something but UK universities are still able to offer study abroad programmes as part of the Turing scheme. In fact for students, I find the Turing scheme to be more flexible in the type of opportunity universities are able to offer students, credit bearing or non-credit bearing, giving students access to parts of the world where they really do gain life changing experiences in relation to cultural differences and developing humility when seeing how others live with less resources. Many students do not wish to study/ive abroad for 3-4 months and shorter duration mobility projects or a month enhance their life just as much. Granted UK universities will be able to access more opportunities for staff in relation to mobility and collaborative projects under Key action 2, but it is not the withdrawl from Erasmus+ which stopped the collaboration between UK and EU institutions. There is/was nothing in the law to say universities couldn't agree their own reciprocal fee waivers for their students and still have study abroad as part of the offer for their students, part funded by Turing. In fact I am sure many still have those relationships in place. Additonally, universities decide their own fee levels for overseas students and again, there is nothing in the law to say they can't offer scholarships /fee waivers to EU students to maintain the 'home' fee status. Perhaps, it wasn't the withdrawal from Erasmus+ but the impact on immigration status as a result of Brexit, and the opitunist startegy of charing EU students full international fees, which negatively impacted the number of fee paying EU students coming to the UK. From a financial perspective, If my recollection is correct, in the past any underspend was returned to the central EU budget, from memory the UK only spent about two thirds of its Erasmus budget in the past. Probably one of the reasons for the withdrawal from Erasmus in the first place? At least with Turing any underspend is returned to the UK exchequer. I hope the shorter term mobility options offered by the Turing scheme will still be available for students to access either as part of or in addition to Erasmus+, although given the finances needed involved in funding both schemes I am not confident they will be.
#2 Submitted by ... on December 19, 2025 - 9:16am
I agree to be honest and am quite alarmed by the cost pf all this which the govt tells us is £570 million a year while the old Erasmus cost £150 million (and was regarded as expensive), but commentators rate at more likely £1 bn, which is an awful lot of cash and would be better placed in QR or somewhere else. The value of the Turing scheme was that it allows students support to go anywhere and not just Europe. Will that still be allowed? I think you are right about the withdrawal of Erasmus having very little to do with collaboration generally between UK and EU universities. I am told that the numbers studying in EU from UK on Erasmus were c. 9,000 and from EU to UK almost 19,000 the last time the scheme ran. Also the scheme does benefit most the sons and daughters of well off European parents, which to me is not a priority. If it can be shown that Erasmus+ will really bring resource into the UK system ten I am all for it, bt a lot of these claims about it furthering collaboration seem pretty vague and aspirational at best. It may be very popular with EU students especially now they do not have access to the student loans that they had before Brexit (which very many have never repaid anything since they left) unless they have settled status. I guess the other thing is that it will be harder to accommodate some of the students wishing to come over as class sizes increases and jobs are lost. In the old days there was plenty of room.
#3 Submitted by wayne.... on December 19, 2025 - 9:38am
Indeed the £570 million per year seems to be an incredible amount, the current funding for Turing this academic year was £78 million and there is normally an underspend. I am not sure if the amount/duration listed in the article is correct ,
#4 Submitted by ... on December 19, 2025 - 11:36am
Well I think Nick Hillman shows that this is irrelevant. “If you can come here cheaply as part of your degree in your own home country as part of Erasmus, why would you opt to come here expensively for, say, a taught master’s and pay full international fees later on?” Exactly. It's just a way of subsidizing the higher education of the children of the European bourgeoisie as far as I can see, given that they use the scheme the most. I think the costs, whether £570 or £1 bn p.a. could really be spent better on more general spending on University research and teaching that would benefit home students and might help stem the loss of jobs in the sector (Prof David Maguire predicts 10,000 losses p.a. for the foreseeable future in his report). It's really nice to have European students around and they are very engaged etc, but it's not worth £1 bn p.a. when we have so many other calls on the public purse. If there is some quid pro quo elsewhere then let's hear about it.
#5 Submitted by ... on December 19, 2025 - 11:41am
Yes it's eye watering especially as the last Erasmus prog costed £150 million and people claimed at the time it was very expensive and poor value for money. But £570 million p.a really is the government figure and easy to check up, just google it. For contrast £2 bn is distributed annually p.a. in QR funding for the UK system. Of course if the govt is saying this is the cost then one might be skeptical as to the true cost given their track record. The press is saying it's much higher of course and estimating it as £1 bn per year. As people say, the students will vote with their feet anyway, so the actual value of the scheme to the UK is less clear. Obviously, the EU has driven a very hard bargain and they are tough negotiators, while the UK tends to be fairly weak and amateurish in international negotiations.
#6 Submitted by ... on December 19, 2025 - 12:10pm
Given they have just allowed fees to rise over £10k p.a and in line with inflation which impacts our students and families in many cases, I find the allocation of £570 million p.a. (if that figure is correct) simply extraordinary. Where is the resource coming from, will it impact on existing budgets (surely it must?) or is it funded from elsewhere in government spending? Will the Turing scheme which allows exchange with non EU nations and is much cheaper be maintained? I know government often announces problematic policy decisions just before the Xmas break up as a very "good time to bury bad news" but this really does seem like an Xmas present from Santa Starmer to Badenoch and Farage.
#7 Submitted by kioj156... on December 19, 2025 - 1:12pm
I am really struggling to understand how this presents value for money in any way. This will cost the government £570 million per annum - and that's with a supposedly negotiated 30% discount for one year, with some newspapers suggesting that it'll end up costing about £1 billion per annum once the first year discount ends. The Turing scheme was always more popular with students at my university, most likely because it funded them to go to other English-speaking countries or in East Asia which presents a lot more opportunities for where the future in global growth, scholarship and innovation will be. Regardless, Turing also enabled students to go abroad in European countries. Its funding model disproportionately benefited students from under-represented backgrounds and had far more uptake. Recent figures reveal that 43,000 students annually benefited from Turing compared to Erasmus' peak of about 16,000. All of this for less than a fifth of the cost of the new Erasmus deal at only £105 million a year. In comparison, EU countries in the past years, sent about 32,000 students to the UK for their Erasmus year. I will be happy to see more European students on campus again, but at a time when the whole sector is undergoing immense financial strain with redundancy news story appearing every week, this extra £400 million funding would have been much better spent supporting the sector over having more EU students coming to the UK. I am becoming more and more disappointed by the decisions of this government everyday.
#8 Submitted by ... on December 19, 2025 - 1:35pm
As "Bones" McCoy used to say "It's worse than that ..." Apparently £570 in the first year for membership for the UK. This includes, believe it or not, a "first year discount" and the cost ten rises to £840 million. Reeves was telling us that there was a financial black hole and we had to cut welfare and disability payments, but it seems they have close to a billion quid to splash away on what really is a "luxury" policy which will largely benefit the children of middle class well off European parents. Of course some UK will benefit as well, they say 100,000 p.a. though they could not get over 10,000 on the old Erasmus scheme.
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#9 Submitted by ... on December 19, 2025 - 1:40pm
What tends to happen is that the EU who negotiate very hard will say, if you want our co-operatrion and agreement in all these other areas, then you need to sign up for this first and once you have done so we will agree to start negotiations in these areas. You will get all the guff about ressetting and improved collaboration. The govt is pretty desperate so it has agreed to this deal which is hugely in favour of the EU and its citizens as most commentaors point put. The govt has only signed up for a year so they could pull put when the a "discount" (30% off if you buy now lol) expires. But by that time they will be so compronesed elsewhere that they will have to stay in or lose the supposed deals they wee after in the first place. So this has little to do with value for money or the needs of the UK HE sector or of young British who by and large want to be eudcated and trained in the UK and all to do with getting young EU citizens over without their paying international fees etc. It's also a move back towards free movement. It's all been dressed up as something else of course. But it's a big win for the EU negotiators. At the same time the UK has been kept out of the new EU defence arrangements after even Soft Touch Starmer refused to pay an up the absolutely shameless demand of a front entry fee of £5bn to participate (insisted upon by Macron in opposition to other EU leaders). They have announced it just before the Xmas break and with a social media blitz about what a great deal with 100,000 places and apprenticeships for UK young people (check your MPs Facebook feed) when they won't get a fraction of that number to participate, as they well know.

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