Your Fee Status
The Graduate Admissions Office has responsibility for determining your fee status for the purpose of paying the University Composition Fee and is obliged to follow UK Government regulations when making fee assessments.
The criteria for classification as a Home or EU/Exchange student is given below. All students who are not classified as Home or EU will be considered as Islands or Overseas. Please note that the definition of Overseas student adopted by the University for the purposes of payment of the Composition Fee is liable to change in order to comply with the requirements of UK legislation.
Your fee status will influence the type of financial aid available to you and so it is important that you are correctly classified. In your offer of admission to the University, we will tell you what we believe your fee status to be, based on the information you have provided in your application form. If you believe that we have misclassified you please see the link below 'Fee Reassessment'.
If you have already been admitted as a graduate student, and disagree with your fee status, you may write to the Deputy Head of Graduate Admissions for a fee reassessment. Please see 'Fee Reassessment' for details.
Criteria for classification as Home or EU/Exchange student
There are a number of requirements which must be met in order to be eligible for Home or EU fees. Students must meet the requirements of both 'settled status' and 'ordinary residence':
- 'settled status/nationality' - means that students must be nationals of the UK or another EU country, or have the right of permanent residence or indefinite leave to enter/remain in the UK. i.e. they must not be subject under immigration laws to any restriction on the period for which they may stay in the UK. Students may also be the 'relevant family member' of an EU national (a relevant family member is generally a spouse or civil partner, a direct descendant, or a dependant);
- 'ordinary residence' - means that in addition, students must also have been ordinarily resident in the UK, the EEA (defined as the EU together with Iceland, Lichtenstein and Norway), Switzerland or the Overseas Territories for the three years prior to the start date of the course for which they are applying, and that residence should not have been wholly or mainly for the purposes of receiving education. Being absent from the UK/EEA due to study abroad is usually considered a 'temporary absence' and does not affect 'ordinary residence' if the home/permanent address is within the UK/EEA.
Note:
This is a general summary of the main criteria for fee status classification, but there are exceptions, as well as other requirements, which must be taken into account. There are also other categories of students who might also be eligible for Home or EU fees, for example, Swiss workers and their family members, children of Swiss nationals or Turkish workers, and refugees or those not granted refugee status but allowed to remain in the UK. In addition, students who are admitted onto a course as part of the arrangements for a fully reciprocal exchange of students with an institution outside the UK, are also eligible for Home/EU fees.
Islands Students:
Please note: Applicants that are from the Channel Islands or the Isle of Man who will begin their course of study in October 2013 will be subject to fees at the Overseas rate.
If you began a one year graduate course (e.g. an Mphil) in October 2012 and are expecting to make an application to continue to a PhD course in October 2013 and were classified as Islands at the Home fee rate, you will continue to pay the Home fee rate throughout your PhD course.
If you are still unsure, or require further information, the up-to-date guidance that we use is available from UKCISA (UK Council for International Student Affairs). For a full description of the up-to-date requirements and fee status regulations, please see the UKCISA website.
- Further information