‘Profound shift’ in international student mobility post-Brexit

Brexit caused a shift in how international students are treated by policymakers and universities, with education now seen “unambiguously as an export”, according to a new book. 

The UK’s decision to leave the European Union in June 2016 triggered a “profound shift” across many elements of its higher education system, the book, Post-Brexit Student Mobilities, highlights.

“Perhaps one of the groups most detrimentally impacted, however, has been students (and recent graduates), whose opportunities for study and work in Europe were hastily and significantly curtailed,” it says.

Co-author Rachel Brooks, professor of higher education at the University of Oxford, said struggles to revive short-term study opportunities were far from inevitable, with the decision to leave Erasmus+ reflecting a desire to distance the UK from the European Union.

Likewise, she told Times Higher Education that many of the problems with the Turing Scheme, Westminster’s attempt at replicating Erasmus, have come from its administration.

Post-Brexit, Brooks said universities went to a lot of effort to mitigate some of the impact of the financial changes, by offering scholarships to EU students to reduce their fees, as well as attempting to retain partnerships.

However, it was nothing compared with the immediate financial impact that EU students faced when they lost “home fee” status and access to UK student loans.

“Despite quite a lot of effort to try to remain attractive to EU whole degree students, when it comes to such a significant discrepancy…universities actually couldn’t do much in the face of that really substantial financial change,” said Brooks.

The number of new EU students on UK courses more than halved between 2020-21 and 2021-22.

The book makes the case that post-Brexit government publications began positioning international education “unambiguously as an export”.

“The reframing of higher education as primarily an export has clearly led to the government’s prioritising of financial concerns, especially student fee income, over other, more qualitative benefits of international student mobility,” said co-author Johanna Waters, professor of human geography at UCL.

“It overlooks the cultural, social and political advantages accrued for students, universities and UK society through international student exchange.”

Brexit led to the separation of outgoing and incoming students, making exchange students consequently less visible within the higher education landscape, she added.

The government confirmed in December that a deal has been agreed with European leaders to rejoin Erasmus+ for the 2027-28 academic year.

But the lack of reciprocity in short-term mobilities was the biggest damage from not being a part of Erasmus in recent years, according to Brooks.

“I think the [biggest] loss has been the incoming students and what that means for teaching more diverse classrooms.

“UK students who aren’t mobile, being able to learn through having, not just Chinese and Indian students in the classroom, but also European students who might just be there for kind of one semester.”

patrick.jack@timeshighereducation.com