The problem
A British citizen whose family has lived overseas applies to a UK university. They hold a UK passport. Their parents are British. In many cases their parents paid UK tax for decades before moving.
They are assessed as an international student.
The difference is not marginal. International fees can be several times the home rate, and international students are also excluded from the student finance arrangements that domestic students rely on. For many families the result is that a UK education becomes unaffordable for a British child — while remaining available to classmates whose connection to the UK is more recent but whose residence history happens to fit the test.
Why it happens
Fee status is assessed on residence, not on citizenship. The rules were built around where a student has been living, and they do what they were designed to do. The difficulty is that they were not designed with a population of five and a half million Britons abroad in mind, of whom a substantial number expect their children to be educated in the country of which they are citizens.
Families discover the problem late, often after an offer has been accepted. The assessment process is opaque enough that two universities can reach different conclusions on similar facts, and the appeal routes are not well understood.
What we are doing
Our Higher Education policy group, led by Simon Landy, is developing proposals that treat citizenship as relevant to fee status without abandoning the principle that residence matters. The aim is a test that a minister could defend publicly: narrow, predictable, and capable of being applied by a family several years before an application.
In November 2025 BOVF took part in a Times Higher Education discussion on the fee status of students from expatriate British families, which brought the issue to a sector audience that had largely not encountered it.
This is one of BOVF's three priority issues, because it affects families at a decision point — and because it is the issue most likely to bring younger British citizens abroad into contact with us.
Who is affected
- British citizens whose children have grown up overseas and want to study in the UK
- Families posted abroad for work who expected their children to return for university
- Returning families who fall short of residency tests despite lifelong citizenship
- Students who hold a British passport but have never been treated as British by a fee assessor
What BOVF proposes
- Recognise citizenship, alongside residence, in fee status assessment for British nationals educated overseas
- Publish a single, plain-English fee status test that families can apply years ahead of an application
- Give families a route to establish eligibility before committing to a course, rather than after acceptance
Policy group lead: Simon Landy. How policy groups work
A case study
Netherlands
Jo: a life built in the Netherlands, and a vote that nearly vanished
Jo moved to the Netherlands before the referendum, built a career and a family there, and spent the following years discovering how many British doors quietly close behind you.
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