EU applicants to UK universities fall 43%, including 73% decline in Polish students

Applications from Polish students to study at British universities fell by 73% this year, the second largest drop of any European Union country.

Overall, there were 43% fewer applications to UK institutions from EU students, as new post-Brexit rules mean those starting their degree in 2021 need to pay higher tuition fees. Uncertainties caused by the pandemic may also have contributed to the drop.

Candidates from Poland submitted around 1,200 applications for admission this autumn by the deadline of 30 June. That was just over a quarter of the record 4,600 applications made last year, reports Business Insider Polska, citing data from UCAS, the UK’s university admissions service.

This was the largest percentage fall in applications from any EU country except Slovakia (74%). It is also the lowest number of Polish applicants since at least the 2012-2013 academic year, when UCAS first began publishing information on applications by country.

Prospective Polish students comprised just over 4% of the 28,400 applicants from the EU. That latter figure was down from 49,600 applications the previous year, and the lowest since 2006, Business Insider reports.

The 2021-2022 academic year will be the first when students from EU countries will have to pay a higher rate of tuition fees at UK universities.

These are set by individual institutions, but are typically at least double those for “home” students (a category that previously included EU nationals), who pay a maximum of £9,250 (€10,800/49,000 zloty) per year. EU students will also need a visa, which entails a further £348 fee.

In Poland, public universities do not charge tuition fees for regular full-time students. Private colleges set their own fees.

Two such public universities, the University of Warsaw and the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, regularly top Polish university league tables, but fare less well internationally.

In the QS list, one of the three main international rankings, these two institutions currently occupy 308th and 309th places respectively. The UK, by contrast, has 17 universities in the top 100.

Business Insider speculates that the uncertainty caused by the pandemic may also have contributed to the fall in applications from EU countries. However, the total number of people applying to universities in the UK, 682,000, was the highest since 2006.

A record number – 102,000 – came from outside the EU, 14% up on last year. The largest share of these were from Chinese applicants, of whom there were almost 28,500.

Main image credit: Bill Nichols/Geograph (under CC BY-SA 2.0)

Ben Koschalka

Ben Koschalka is a translator and senior editor at Notes from Poland. Originally from Britain, he has lived in Kraków since 2005.