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| Britain |
| New EU citizens race for bargain university places |
| 2004-07-15 |
| APPLICATIONS to British universities from students in the new member states of the European Union have more than doubled in a year. The number seeking places on degree courses in Britain has risen from 1,332 last year to 3,174, Ucas, the Universities and Colleges Admissions Service, said yesterday. Ten countries joined the EU on May 1, making their students eligible to be treated on the same terms as home undergraduates for tuition fees in Britain. They are: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. Instead of paying up to £16,000 a year, students from these countries now face a maximum annual tuition charge of £1,125 for courses. Many will have that fee paid by the British Government because their parental income is likely to be less than £21,475 a year. Cyprus recorded the biggest rise, up by 819 to 1,774, making it the fastest-growing and twelfth largest source of foreign applicants to British universities. The increase in interest from the new member states contributed to a 30 per cent rise in EU applications to 20,440 this year. Applications from the rest of the world rose by 7 per cent to 54,607. China accounted for one in five of them, making it the largest single source of overseas applicants to British universities. Applications from British students aged under 21 rose by 1 per cent to almost 307,000. There was a 2 per cent rise among those aged 21 to 24, to 36,152, while applications from mature students rose by 4.1 per cent to 40,763. Total applications for entry to universities in September rose by 2.9 per cent to 450,147, with the number of women growing at twice the rate of men. Ucas said there were an extra 9,050 female and 3,482 male applicants this year, an increase of 3.8 per cent and 1.7 per cent respectively. Women now far outnumber men in applications for full-time degree courses: some 246,000 women are seeking places against 204,000 men. |
| Posted by:Mark Espinola |