Moving from Germany to the UK to study for the Masters in Analytics and Management at London Business School was an expensive, bureaucratic challenge for Alex Scheuer.
The 23-year-old had to spend £800 to obtain a student visa and hundreds more on health insurance because, following Brexit, his German citizenship no longer gave him free care through the UK’s NHS. He is still unsure whether he will look for a job in London after his degree. “To be honest, I am not sure if I can stay here,” he says. “I opened the door to come to London, but the higher wages are not enough to offset the increased living costs compared with where I was.”
Despite all this, Scheuer has no regrets about coming to the UK and would recommend that other EU citizens do the same, at least to attend the country’s best institutions. His most likely move after graduation next August will be to return to Berlin, but the payback from studying at the London school made it worth coming to the UK, he believes. “The LBS brand sets you up for a career wherever you go,” Scheuer says. “I made a calculation that my business salary in Germany should increase by about half, meaning that I can earn back the tuition fees I’m paying from my savings in two years.”
Brexit has had some impact on the UK business education sector but not as great as some feared. Changes to the UK student visa programme, lowering a barrier to international students that predated the EU referendum, as well as the drop in sterling’s value after Brexit, have helped attract business students to the UK from the EU and beyond. Postgraduate enrolments from EU countries for the 2022/23 academic year were down at 47 per cent, survey shows. However, 50 per cent reported significantly higher intakes from other parts of the world this year, with a further 24 per cent reporting the same or slightly higher intakes from non-EU countries.
