Overseas Students: Finance

Mr. Hayes
To ask the Secretary of State for Innovation, Universities and Skills further to his letter of 7 September 2007 to the Chairman of the Higher Education Funding Council for England, whether a UK resident or citizen with a qualification from an overseas institution deemed to be equivalent to or lower than a qualification which they wish to study will qualify for public funding for higher education courses in English institutions where they have not previously accessed public funding for higher education within the UK.

Bill Rammell
Subject to exceptions for particular categories of students and subjects on which HEFCE has been consulting, such citizens who wished to study for a qualification equivalent to or lower than the one already obtained from an overseas’ institution would not qualify for the purposes of institutional public funding. Our clear priority is to widen participation and increase the incentives for higher education providers to attract and retain more of the millions of people without a first higher education qualification, wherever that qualification was obtained.