EU students ‘to get £13,000 loans from UK’

STUDENTS from the EU could be loaned more than £13,000 a year for tuition fees by the UK after Brexit.

Officials are understood to be in discussions which could lead to the offer to european students at British universities to stop their numbers plunging.

Currently, they pay the same £9,250 fees as home students and have access to the same taxpayer-funded loans, which are repaid voluntarily. But this is expected to end if there is a so-called ‘hard’ Brexit, meaning EU students would be treated like international students. The average cost for an international student is £13,394 a year and they have to pay upfront each term.

Sources said the Government is examin- ing if it would be feasible to provide loans to cover these higher fees to maintain the number of EU students at UK universities.

But experts said it can be difficult to force repayments when foreign students return home. The higher education Policy Institute said EU countries should ‘offer certainty over helping recover the loans after graduation as well as reciprocity for Britons travelling to their countries to study’.