Education Secretary Urged To Grant Home Fees For Britain’s Hong Kong Students

Hong Kong Watch home fee status briefing launch (Credit: Hong Kong Watch)

Sophie Church

@sophiealichurch

British National (Overseas) visas are granted to Hong Kongers seeking to build new lives in the UK, after China began cracking down on freedoms in Hong Kong in 2020. There are now more than 190,000 Hong Kongers living on a BNO visa in the UK.

However, BNO visa holders are currently only eligible for home university fees when they have lived in the UK for five years. This means Hong Kong students are paying much higher fees than British students to go to university, whilst being ineligible for student loans.

In contrast, Ukrainian and Afghan refugees living in the UK are afforded home fee status. They also receive student finance support.

Now, BNO students are calling on Phillipson to reduce the length of time required for Hong Kongers to be living in the UK to qualify for home fees, a change already implemented in Scotland in 2023.

In a letter to be sent to the Education Secretary when Parliament returns from recess, endorsed by MPs and peers, BNO students are requesting that the government, “follow the example of the Scottish government” by reducing the residency requirement for home fee status “from five to three years for BNO visa holders”.

As a “reserve alternative”, the group is asking Phillipson to grant BNO visa holders “access to student finance options”.

The letter, published by London-based NGO Hong Kong Watch, also notes that “it is simply unaffordable and unfair” for BNO visa holders to pay up to £50,000 per year for tuition fees, “especially when almost all residents from British overseas territories have been eligible for Home fee status since 2007”.

Under the current system, students from Hong Kong face paying more than £20,000 a year more than domestic students for university fees.

Without home fee status, the letter adds that, “a generation of bright young Hong Kongers will continue to be priced out of their dreams of studying medicine, computer science and engineering – the skills that we desperately need”.  

Amy, who moved to the UK from Hong Kong in 2020, has a daughter who wants to study medicine at university. However, with many universities charging around £30,000 in the first two years, and then around £48,000 for the remaining four years for a medical degree, Amy and her husband cannot afford the fees.

When her daughter told her she wanted to apply for medical school, Amy said she “struggled”, and even tried to “persuade her to give up”.

She explained:  “I should be proud of her. But when she told me, obviously my husband and I worried, because we know we could not afford the tuition fees”.

Amy added that her daughter was in the 97th percentile for her University Clinical Aptitude Test, an admissions test used by universities in the UK. However, with some London universities charging £50,000 a year to international students, Amy said the only way her daughter could attend a high-ranking university would be if she was awarded a scholarship.

She said: “My daughter and her UCAT score has proven that she has the ability to receive a higher education. Of course, the UK government is already very generous to provide a visa for us to come to the UK. Just as parents, we feel bad, we feel sorry about our daughter because we don't have enough money, and then she cannot receive a better education”.

Thomas Benson, policy and research advisor at Hong Kong Watch, said that the letter attracted more than 150 signatories from BNO visa holders within four hours of it being publicised on 6 August. It has also already been endorsed by Labour MP for Rotherham Sarah Champion, Labour MP for Warrington North Charlotte Nichols, Crossbench peer Lord Alton and Conservative peer Lord Patten.

Champion said: "Almost all residents from British Overseas Territories have been eligible for home fee status since 2007. It doesn’t seem fair that BNO Hong Kongers are priced out of the UK’s higher education system, expected to pay exorbitant international fees, despite choosing to build a life here.

Reducing the residency requirement for home fee status from 5 to 3 years, would go a long way in helping young Hong Kongers with aspirations to study at university."

Hong Kong Watch now hopes to gather as many MP endorsements as possible before sending the official letter to the Education Secretary in September.

Benson said: “A young BNO Hong Konger with dreams of studying medicine at university has to pay up to £50k a year in tuition alone, with no access to student loans. At Hong Kong Watch, we’ve seen firsthand how crushing this can be for BNO families, who have to tell their children they simply can’t afford this financial burden.

The UK government could change this by bringing BNO Hong Kongers in line with other students, such as those from the EU, by granting home fee status after three years’ residency.”

However, Emily Thornberry, Labour MP for Islington South and Finsbury, said Labour’s economic inheritance means the government will have to make “some really tough choices”.

She said: “I have every sympathy for this cause, and I'm sure that Bridget will consider it with great care. But the truth is that she will need to do that against a background of eye wateringly tight budgets that the Tories have left us with. I know she is having to make some really tough choices.”

The Department for Education did not respond to a request for comment.

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