There was something very odd about the big Westminster government announcement on the UK rejoining Erasmus+.
Pippa Crerar’s reporting in the Guardian on Tuesday night quoted “sources” claiming that there is expected to be an “international fee waiver” for EU students studying at UK universities under the scheme, meaning they would pay the equivalent of domestic fees that are capped at £9,535 a year.
The piece added:
In return, UK students would continue paying their standard domestic fees at their home university during their year studying in Europe as part of their UK degree courses. They would be eligible for a grant to help with the additional costs of living abroad.
But hold on. That makes no sense. Not only would that break a fundamental Erasmus rule (you don’t pay fees to the host university), the arrangement as described would see £10,648 flowing into the UK university for doing very little for the student studying abroad.
Meanwhile the European student coming to the UK would suddenly be forking out a lot more than most of them do at home.
All of the material published on the announcement day merely said that UK students will pay “no more” than they do now – but what most of the media missed is that what they pay now is a fixed 15 per cent of the maximum fee to the UK university. “No more” than £1,598 or “no more” than £10,648?
The Department for Education (DfE) – which has already announced that the maximum fee a UK university can levy on a student studying abroad will be that 15 per cent thing that’s been in place for a decade – referred me to the Cabinet Office. No reply was forthcoming there or via the EU, and UUK simply told me to contact the government. Weird.
For the time being, let’s assume that Crerar’s “sources” were mixing up what might well be coming in the wider youth mobility deal – it does suggest that for students coming here (or going there) for a course outside of Erasmus+, students will pay the home fee rate in the host country, as they did pre-Brexit – which resurrects the “EU students pay £0, RUK students pay £9,535” issue in Scotland.
The issue of fees will matter quite a bit when considering inward demand given fees are generally much lower and loan schemes to pay them less common. And from a UK student perspective, even 15 per cent of the max fee looks like a rip off. What are they getting for that?
It’s a jolly holiday in Bari
The political debate has been mainly focussed on the “middle class jolly” thing, which is not helped by half a billion flowing to HE for this looking very odd when there’s very little other money that students don’t take out a loan for flowing into the sector, at least on the teaching side.
The government has pressed the breadth of opportunities for non-HE students, the widening participation aspects of the plus version of Erasmus, and the “bang for buck” on wider spending – but does look a little top heavy.
Overall of course the cost should be covered by the raid on Plan 2 graduates in the Budget – suffering their second repayment threshold freeze in a decade. Let’s think of this as robbing Covid grads whose year abroad was on Youtube to pay students to have a proper one now.
As I’ve noted on here before, Erasmus+ is not your granddad’s Erasmus. For higher education students there’s your core study periods of 2-12 months at partner institutions, as well as traineeships in workplaces abroad for 2-12 months, or a combo both within a mobility period.
Doctoral students can access shorter “mobilities” of 5-30 days or longer periods of 2-12 months, with the option to include traineeships. School pupils can participate in group mobilities of 2-30 days accompanied by staff, individual short-term learning mobilities of 10-29 days, or long-term mobilities exceeding one month.
FE students and apprentices can access group mobilities of 2-30 days, short-term placements of 10 days to 3 months (or from 2 days for disadvantaged students), long-term Erasmus Pro placements up to one year, and funding to attend skills competitions for 1-10 days. Adult education learners can spend up to one month learning, training or volunteering abroad.
Young people can also join youth exchanges of 5-21 days for workshops and activities, access Discover EU rail passes at age 18, and participate in youth participation projects addressing civic and cultural issues.
Mobility funding covers travel, living costs, course fees, visa costs, language preparation and organisational costs, with additional support for students with disabilities, additional learning needs and disadvantaged backgrounds.
Universities and education institutions can access multiple partnership and mobility frameworks. Higher education institutions must first secure Erasmus Charter for Higher Education accreditation, then can participate in cooperation partnerships, Erasmus Mundus Joint Masters programmes, Alliances for Innovation, and capacity-building projects. And Jean Monnet actions support teaching and learning about EU policies in schools and universities.
Staff can undertake teaching periods or training activities of 2-60 days, combining both if desired, with job shadowing and observation opportunities at partner institutions or enterprises.
Schools can develop partnerships with other schools, access the eTwinning online collaboration platform, and send teachers for training courses of 2-10 days, job shadowing from 2 days to 2 months, or teaching assignments from 2 days to one year. VET providers can establish partnerships addressing Erasmus+ priorities and send staff for courses and training of 2-10 days, job shadowing of 2 days to 2 months, or teaching assignments of 2 days to one year. Adult education providers can develop partnership projects for innovative practices.
Youth organisations can run Mobility Projects for Youth Workers lasting 3 months to 2 years, including seminars, training courses, networking events and study visits. Funding applications must be submitted through institutions either individually or via consortia, with some Key Action 2 and 3 activities managed directly by the European Education and Culture Executive Agency.
The programme extends beyond formal education into youth work and sport as well. Youth workers can access professional development through mobility projects involving seminars, training courses, networking events, study visits and job shadowing abroad in projects involving at least two organisations from different countries. Sports coaches and grassroots sports staff can undertake job shadowing or observation periods of 2-14 days, or coaching and training assignments of 2 weeks to 2 months, with non-grassroots staff eligible if their work benefits grassroots sport.
Not a fair swap
The main moan about Erasmus always was that far more students came to study in the UK than vice versa, which Brexit types put down to our education system being better. I’m not so sure about that – there were clearly a range of other barriers in play, and a lot of European HE is now taught in English given wider non-EU internationalisation agendas as universities across the continent clock on to international fees as an income source.
Here in 2025, however expensive student housing is across Europe, it’s almost always cheaper than here – and the “pent up demand” thing may well kick in, as well as the attractions of what was usually a “pass/fail” second year rather than their weird grind of grading everything that moves that we maintain in the UK.
The decision in 2012 to allow universities to charge that 15 per cent came off the back of a report led by Colin Riordan, then VC at Cardiff on barriers to mobility. It said that the problem was mainly money and language, but those headline barriers were reinforced by a system that made mobility feel like an optional add-on for confident, well-off students rather than a normal, supported part of study.
Costs and debt aversion sat alongside low language confidence, especially once pupils had already been funnelled into narrower choices at school. Then the university-level friction kicked in – tightly specified curricula, professional accreditation constraints (particularly in health and STEM), patchy recognition of overseas learning (itself a subset of the UK’s general failure to do credit transfer properly), and the sheer administrative grind of making exchanges work when support teams are small and incentives for academics and departments are thin.
The report called for a coherent UK outward mobility strategy and an organising body to professionalise practice, coordinate messaging, and create a single, navigable portal of opportunities and support. It argued for sustainable funding beyond fragile pots, including sponsorship and philanthropy, and for mainstream student finance to travel with the learner (loan portability), backed by a clearer map of scholarships and bursaries so students were not left guessing.
It called for curriculum redesign so mobility would fit more easily, and for consistent recognition and accreditation of the learning and skills gained abroad, with targeted work with professional bodies to unblock the hardest-to-move disciplines. It also pushed for a proper national data regime with agreed definitions, so the sector could understand participation patterns and equity gaps and stop flying blind.
Alongside that, it recommended collaboration and shared services to reduce duplication and build capacity, more creative models than the traditional “extra year abroad”, and earlier intervention through schools and stronger language learning as national infrastructure. And it made a case for equality – if employers care about a global mindset more than the route, then UK-based “international” experiences were to be recognised too.
A lot of that simply never materialised – although HEFCE was funded to do a supplement to support students on overseas exchange programmes, offering around £2,250 for full-year placements abroad. Albeit with a declining value per student over time, that actually survived in England until this academic year – only for it to be scrapped in Bridget Phillipson’s OfS allocation for 2025-26. Unsurprisingly, there’s no news on a resurrection to accompany today’s announcement.
Widening access to mobility
Later in the decade an EU-funded UUKi report on widening participation in mobility found that UK’s problem was never just “low participation” overall, but was patterned inequality with compounding effects. Students with overlapping disadvantages had even lower rates of participation.
In 2015–16, students from higher socio-economic backgrounds were sixty-five per cent more likely to be outwardly mobile (2.5 per cent vs 1.5 per cent). BME students were 22.2 per cent of the cohort but only 17.6 per cent of outwardly mobile students. Care leavers sat at 1.0 per cent participation (below the 1.7 per cent sector average).
Practical exposure to upfront costs, uncertainty, and the limits of support were all key, and those financial issues were felt more strongly among certain socio-economic groups. Students often financed mobility through loans, because grants did not cover all costs.
Longer-term mobility was blocked by cost, responsibilities at home such as caring duties or paid work, and less flexibility in the length of degree programmes. So the barrier was structural. When the timetable didn’t not bend, only certain lives could travel.
Students’ decisions were shaped by the type of information provided and the timing of it, with many saying earlier awareness helped. Academic staff mattered too, and academic buy-in was persuasive when students were considering mobility. If the message comes late, or from someone students do not trust, why would we expect take-up to widen?
The report also flags negative assumptions and links these to culture shock and homesickness. It also noted that for some groups, families needed to know what to expect in terms of cost, culture, and impact on the degree. Outward mobility is often sold as a confidence booster. But whose confidence is being asked for upfront?
Weak national signalling on widening participation in mobility was also a factor. It drew on European-level analysis that national targets that included widening participation signalled strong political commitment. Yet it noted the UK did not have a national target for mobility participation by underrepresented groups.
To fix, university leaders were invited to shift from mobility-as-optional-extra to mobility-as-designed-and-funded pathway (our old friend “whole university approach”), targets were to be set to mirror the institution’s student body, delivery was to be hardwired through academic departments (including named coordinators and staff induction) rather than leaving it to an international office, and it wanted joined-up support with widening participation teams, disability services, careers and SUs, alongside clearer “no surprises” information and pre-departure preparation.
No doubt that happened in some universities, but I’m also willing to stick my neck out and suggest that the report and its recommendations gathered digital dust in the way that so many reports of its ilk do. If nothing else, DfE should require outward mobility to show up in access and participation plans in England.
The road ahead
Here in 2025, I’d add in money and provision responsibility. The Riordon report tended to treat Erasmus as an intercalary extra year that extended a standard bachelor’s degree, warning that higher fees and debt could deter students from extending their degree to encompass a period of mobility”. That later report tended to treat an Erasmus “year” (or, more often in the case studies, a semester-length period) as part of the degree rather than some bolt-on “extra credit” activity.
In the latter case, UK universities’ repeated lack of interest in student transfer (a duty in England that few observe with enthusiasm) is a signal of the problem – having three years of fees is financial lock in, so mobility becomes a financial loss. While I’d love to imagine that governing bodies will ever think about anything else (like purpose or the student interest), I’m also a realist.
Generally, the lack of action on transfer, credit accumulation, mobility and any number of issues also reflects that unlike across the EU, we don’t seem much interested in framing anything as a student right, despite levying much higher fees than most of the continent. If ministers really want this to succeed, they should get a grip. A lifelong “entitlement” to loans with barely any rights over the education the loans buy remains the worst aspect of the UK’s “wooden legs, real feet” approach to HE policy.
Meanwhile it’s always been the case that the regulatory position is up in the air – QA has often been “light” (assumed to be covered by Bologna processes) but things like harassment and sexual misconduct, or free speech, or any number of other areas where a student might assume at best equivalence or at least that someone’s thought about it back home (in exchange for their 15 per cent of the fee) have tended to be filed in the “too difficult to resolve” box.
Without a proper strategy inside DfE, proper incentives (or targets) for universities and progress on stuff like credit transfer, the real danger is that a future government that is less interested in being anything other than little England mentality will look at similarly disappointing participation (either in volume or access terms) and just yank the reverse lever. I’d love to be wrong.