As Great British Pound (GBP) has risen considerably against Indian rupee in the past few weeks, Indian students travelling to the UK for overseas education later this year stare at a tougher (er.. expensive) times ahead.
With pound going upward from ₹100 per unit to ₹105 per unit in the recent past, the cost of foreign education of UK-bound students has undoubtedly seen a considerable jump.
Not only the tuition fee, but also the cost of living is set to increase for the Indian students geared to study in British colleges this year i.e., September 2024.
Additional cost
Let us suppose, a student is set to join a university that charges £20,000 per year as fees from international student, s/he will end up incurring ₹21 lakh instead of ₹20 lakh when pound was ₹100 per unit a couple of months ago.
Add to this the living expenses which have also proportionately risen in line with the exchange rate. To be able to live in London, an international student is supposed to show the money to the tune of £12,006 for each year of stay. At the new exchange rate of ₹105, this amounts to ₹12.61 lakh against ₹12 lakh earlier.
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It is vital to note that this money (Indian currency equivalent to £12,006) needs to be kept in an Indian bank account for a minimum of 28 days before one can apply for the visa under what is known as 28-day rule.
Those who intend to study in a university outside London need to show a relatively less money (i.e., £9,207 for first year of study).
Miscellaneous expenses
A slew of other expenses towards visa and air tickets amount to nearly £3,000. With increase in exchange rate, the cost comes to around ₹3.15 lakh when computed at the rate of ₹105, whereas it stood at ₹3 lakh when the exchange rate was ₹100.
From the above calculations, the additional cost to be incurred on account of the increase in exchange rate only comes to around ₹1,76,000 ( ₹1,00,000 + 61,000 + 15,000) each year.
If the studies are for more than one year, the total cost can be multiplied accordingly. For a three-year degree, the additional cost would turn out to be ₹5,28,000.
Indian students in the UK
A recent data showed that there were 133,237 sponsored study visa grants to Indian nationals in the year ending September 2023, reflecting a marginal increase of 5 per cent over September 2022.
Interestingly, this is now nearly five times higher than in the year ending September 2019.
Indians comprised 27 per cent of all sponsored study grants to applicants in the latest year, the analysis revealed .
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Published: 15 Mar 2024, 07:45 PM IST