EU students post Brexit

[Mamaderuby]

Bad news for EU students planning to start 3rd level education in UK September 2021. It has now been announced that they will no longer be eligible for Home fees or student finance. This does not include Ireland, as they have separate agreement. 

My daughter has both Irish and Spanish nationality, but has resided in Spain her whole life. She should be entitled to home fee status, but I am  not sure about either student loans or DADA, due to residency. I am desperate for a bit of clarity! 

[Jan McNulty]

If you search on the (non) word Brexit there were lots of threads discussing potential issues that come up in the search.

[Lusodancer]

On 26/06/2020 at 20:06, Mamaderuby said:

Bad news for EU students planning to start 3rd level education in UK September 2021. It has now been announced that they will no longer be eligible for Home fees or student finance. This does not include Ireland, as they have separate agreement. 

My daughter has both Irish and Spanish nationality, but has resided in Spain her whole life. She should be entitled to home fee status, but I am  not sure about either student loans or DADA, due to residency. I am desperate for a bit of clarity! 

Dear Mamadaruby,

Yes the news this week was not good for EU students. But more than that, the viability of many UK university  courses in the long run may be weakened without the injection of foreign students, financed or not by Student Finance or parent power. If applications fall, then departments will contract. Many EU countries have English language courses now to attract all those English speaking foreign students from around the globe for a fraction of the price of the UK, in everything from Medicine, Dentistry and Veternary, to Music and Dance. 

I have just managed to get my daughters into the UK, under their 'right to roam' given that we, as parents, gave them no option as minors except to live where we parents chose to live or were stationed for work. My undergraduate musician qualified for Student Finance as a UK student, not EU, though she has lived in Portugal since 18 months. My' born-in-Portugal' dual nationality younger DD went to study in the UK with a scholarship to a  Level 4 diploma course. A levels (level3)  and the rest of  the costs were funded by us. A later degree should qualify for UK SF funding. 

If you get really stuck for Level 3 vocational dance studies in the UK, then there are courses in Spain or Portugal, that would be a fraction of UK costs for someone who speaks Spanish and English. Portugal has a Ministry of Education  specialist arts education system  for post 15 yrs ( 3 years sixth form) free, and so only accommodation would be required to be funded, and Spain has some excellent vocational schools for 16 plus. I would be happy to forward some suggestions  so that you can explore a number of options.

Have you looked at the options in Ireland?

 

 

 

[Mamaderuby]

Hi Lusodancer,

Thanks for your reply.

My daughter will have completed Spanish Bachillerato (A level equivalent) by next June, so was looking into  a BA or level 6 dance course. Top of her list would be Laine, performer's college or Urdang. It is interesting to see that your undergraduate musician qualified as UK student not EU, even without the residency. That gives me hope that my DD could qualify as Irish student, not EU. Do the universities/schools make that decision or SFE?  I have looked into HE dance options in Spain, which are more geared towards ballet and contemporary. There are also a few private dance/musical theatre schools here, with BA degrees awarded by British Universities. This may be an option. Ireland has some fantastic private ballet and dance schools, but when it comes to HE, most Irish dance students go to UK to train. There are a some community colleges which do level 4 and 5, with a possibility of then doing a top up year in the UK. There is a good 2 year foundation course in Dublin in the College of Dance, but again, students tend to go on to full time training in the UK. The University of Limerick do a 4 year BA, but it is contemporary dance. I have also looked into Codarts and Fontys in the Netherlands. These 4 year BA courses are given through English. They are another possible option, but again, very strong contemporary emphasis. She is strong in ballet, contemporary and commercial, but her true love is Jazz, and with so many great options in the UK, that has been the dream. So, we are really hoping for student loan or DADA (or other scholarship).  My dancing son is just 2 years behind her, but his focus is more ballet and contemporary, so I believe there will be more training options for him around Europe.

 

[meadowblythe]

It might also be worth investigating courses in Scotland (I think RCS has a musical theatre course?)  Their funding is organised differently to the English courses.  I have no idea of the calibre of their offering.

 

And what happens next year is anyone's guess at the moment ..

[Lusodancer]

22 hours ago, Mamaderuby said:

I have looked into HE dance options in Spain, which are more geared towards ballet and contemporary. There are also a few private dance/musical theatre schools here, with BA degrees awarded by British Universities. This may be an option.

It looks like you have been researching far and wide.... Codarts is popular but as you say, more ballet, contemporary oriented, Dutch National?  Brussels? Have you checked out the IAB (Institute of the Arts Barcelona) that has a broader dance course that includes Jazz and the musical theatre skills.What about PERA in Cyprus?  Or the University of Malta, they have a dance course. The problem this year and next might be the auditons and timings. Each country has different rules or dates. The UK is usually early, but then scholarship recalls were messed up this year (if you follow some of the feeds) .  See who might accept video auditions for the first stage. 

 

As regards student finance with the Musical D, when challenged about residence and UK status, she wrote a letter that said that she moved with us to EU at eighteen months, having no option but to be with her parents, and now that she had reached 18 and had finished the PT school cycle, she was opting to exert her right to 'return' to the UK to study. That seemed to satisfy them under their 'right to roam' rules. Quite what happens from here onwards  is anybody's guess.

My DD will have lived in the UK for extended sixth form level studies  in home schooling of A levels alongside vocational studies, so she should qualify later too for Finance I hope. She has been a vocational student since 11 years , firstly in Lisbon, lately in the UK, and will do a preprofessional course after reaching 18, prior to trying to get a company job, instead of another 3 or 4 years of dance degree. She is spending Covid lockdown signing up for every course going that substiutes for theory classwork in Uni , preparation for a teacher's diploma , plus assisting in any MSc Dance Science Projects that are open to under 18 year olds( she is only 17 at the end of the summer, but has already completed her first A level, and finishes the others next summer having always studied in Portuguese ). She wants to do an academic degree later after a dance career, so she is enjoying seeing the questionaires and helping with academic study related to her world.

Many of her old colleagues are struggling to get into junior companies or directly in to companies where even 4 or 5 years ago this would have been the norm for their finalists at 18. They are moving from one 'school ' environment to another educational establishment instead of learning on the job. The lucky ones get selected at competitions or masterclasses, but it is fewer now.  Trying to identify long term goals for your DD will guide the choices for the course. The UK schools are good about publicising and taking a pride in their employment rates for graduates. Check these out with other colleges....if they can't tell you, well be careful.

We have a friend who opted for a dance degree and then complained about the lack of dancing. Yes there was some technique classes but so much was spent on the theory, or the language of dance , especially as the groups had different previous experience, that she found herself so far ahead of many and really missed the stage. She is reconsidering her options as many pupils take extra classe outside to get more practice of broader skills. 

There are many well informed people in this forum so I am sure there will be more input regarding other courses. The uncertainties are the post Brexit legislation, the economic repercussions of the Covid emergency and fiscal restrictions that limit available funding, Home Office interpretations of nationality, citizenship, residence with regard to EU -resident Brits , and the EU responses to such,  and as even the politicians can't even agree, we will be the last to know. 

I just wish you luck and a lot of patience. 

[Mamaderuby]

16 hours ago, meadowblythe said:

It might also be worth investigating courses in Scotland (I think RCS has a musical theatre course?)  Their funding is organised differently to the English courses.  I have no idea of the calibre of their offering.

 

And what happens next year is anyone's guess at the moment ..

Thankyou. The MT course in RCS looks great, a real triple threat course. My DD has been taking private singing lessons for the past year (minus 12 weeks of quarantine), but she really is a dancer who can sing a bit, rather than a singer who can dance a bit. She wants to do a dance course (degree or diploma) that also has singing and acting modules rather than a true MT or Triple threat. There are many that interest her : Laine, Performer's, SLP, LIPA and NBS. Urdang, Italia Conti and LSC too, although accommodation in London may prove to be just too far out of budget, especially if we have to cover fees. 

I await announcement from Scotland regarding EU and Irish student status for 2021 with baited breath!

[Mamaderuby]

Hi Lusodancer,

IAB is definitely on our radar.My DD won a scholarship to attend their summer school this year. Unfortunately, it was cancelled. They will honour it for next summer, but we would hope to have all applications and auditions completed by then. We may plan a weekend in Barcelona in September and see if we can look around premises and maybe DD can join in a couple of classes.

I am unfamiliar with both PERA and the University of Malta dance course, but I am adding them to my research list now. Thankyou for that.

Your DDs sound very disciplined, determined and creative! I'm sure you are very proud of them.

Luck and patience are definitely what we need now (and an unexpected windfall?).