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

BNO visa holders, backed by MPs and peers, are calling on Education Secretary Bridget Phillipson to end international fees for Hong Kong students living in the UK.

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”.

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