Remember the hoo-ha about the sharp fall in the number of EU students applying to study at British universities? Numbers were down, we were told, and there was only one reason: Brexit. In the months since the referendum, applications from EU students have fallen by seven per cent. Nicola Dandridge, chief executive of Universities UK, told MPs they were ‘concerned about EU numbers’. These Brexit jitters were nothing new; in its initial application stage which ended in October, Cambridge University announced a 14.1 per cent dip year-on-year in students from the continent applying to study there. A spokesman for the university said there was ‘considerable uncertainty’ felt by EU students in the wake of the referendum. Brexit, it seems, is already starting to bite.
So, that’s the bad news. What you probably haven’t heard is the good news: universities need not have worried. Yes, it’s true that applications from EU students to the UK did fall last year, from 202,250 down to 187,470. But when you look at the numbers in a bigger context, a different picture forms. In fact, the 187,000 students from the EU who applied to study at British institutions this year is roughly in line with the 190,000 who applied to study in 2015. While if you look a little further back, the number of EU applicants in 2016/ 17 – after the referendum – was actually higher than any time in 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013 and 2014. (Incidentally, the same can’t be said for applications from English students, with the 1.72m applications last year lower than in 2013, 2014, 2015 and 2016).
Of course, some will say that there’s still been a fall in the number of EU students. And while they are right, this isn’t the first time that British universities have seen the number of applicants from Europe go down. In 2012, the numbers tumbled by 20,000 compared to the year before – a bigger fall than in the most recent round of applications since the Brexit vote. Back then, no one was talking about a looming crisis – and British universities have continued to thrive. Why can’t the same be true now? Not for the first time – and nor for the last time, it seems – Project Fear appears to have been over-egged.
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