The rules about who pays ‘home’ fees for higher education in Northern Ireland are set by the Northern Ireland Assembly (they are not set by UKCISA). They are set out in regulations, which the Northern Ireland Assembly amends over time. The regulations identify all the different ‘categories’ of student who can insist on paying at the ‘home’ rate. They set out all the requirements a student needs to meet, to fit one of those categories.
The Northern Ireland Assembly is making some changes to those regulations, through the Education (Student Support, etc.) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2024 (Statutory Rules of Northern Ireland 2024 No.19).
UKCISA’s pdf guide, ‘Who pays ‘home’ fees for higher education in Northern Ireland?’ has been updated to reflect the changes. These are:
‘Family member of a UK national’ category becomes ‘Family member of a settled person’ category
For courses that start on or after 1 August 2024, this category will not be limited to the family members of UK nationals. It will become a category for the ‘family member of a settled person’, and will be available to the family members of any of the following (though note that the person mentioned in this list will need to be ordinarily resident in the UK on the first day of the first academic year of the course):
- British Citizen
- person with indefinite leave to remain, or indefinite leave to enter
- person with settled status under the EU Settlement Scheme
- Republic of Ireland citizen
- person with a Certificate of Entitlement to the Right of Abode in the UK
- non-British Citizen whilst serving in the British armed forces
The number of people who can use the category will therefore increase.
In UKCISA’s pdf guide, ‘Who pays ‘home’ fees for higher education in Northern Ireland?’, we have created two versions of the category:
- ‘Family member of a UK national, course starts before 1 August 2024’ (page 40 of the pdf guide)
- ‘Family member of a settled person, course starts on or after 1 August 2024’ (page 36 of the pdf guide)
You can read the full requirements for these two categories there. Make sure you are reading the correct one for your course start date.
‘UK national or Irish citizen’ date change
It will be slightly easier to qualify for the ‘UK national or Irish citizen’ category for academic years that start on or after 1 August 2024 (even for students who are already on courses).
That is because instead of needing to be a UK national or Irish citizen on the ‘first day of the first academic year’ of the course (which is a standard date like 1 September or 1 January), the student will need to be a UK national or Irish citizen on the day on which the first term of the first academic year actually begins. This date is often a few weeks later.
You can read the full requirements for the ‘UK national or Irish citizen’ category, which describe the change, on page 34 of UKCISA’s pdf guide, ‘Who pays ‘home’ fees for higher education in Northern Ireland?’.
If you do not know how the ‘first day of the first academic year’ is calculated (it is always 1 September, 1 January, 1 April or 1 July), see the definition of the term ‘first day of the academic year’ on page 6 of UKCISA’s pdf guide, ‘Who pays ‘home’ fees for higher education in Northern Ireland?’.
Action for fee assessors
If you are a fee assessor, you will need to make sure that any fees you charge from August 2024 onwards are in line with the changes. Check if any preliminary assessments you have already made for courses starting on or after 1 August 2024 are impacted, and also think about whether there are any existing students moving on to a new year who might benefit from the change to the ‘UK national or Irish citizen’ category.
Action for students
If you have previously been told you did not qualify for ‘home’ fees, check to see if you meet the new requirements. Remember that you need to meet all the criteria for any one category. If you do, talk to your fee assessor straightaway. You might want to send them a link to this story.
Remember that your course has to start on or after 1 August 2024, if you want to use the ‘Family member of a settled person’ category (instead of the ‘Family member of a UK national’ category).
Further reading
If you want to see the regulations that made the changes, they are the Education (Student Support, etc.) (Amendment) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2024 (Statutory Rules of Northern Ireland 2024 No.19).
You can read about other changes made by the regulations in the following news story on the UKCISA website:
Definition of ‘UK national’ added to pdf guide
The definition of a ‘UK national’ is now included in the ‘Definitions’ section at the start of UKCISA’s pdf guide, ‘Who pays ‘home’ fees for higher education in Northern Ireland?’ (on page 9):
“UK national
To count as a ‘UK national’ for the purpose of this pdf guide, you must fit one of the following three bullet points:
-
-
- ‘British Citizen’
- Your passport describes you as a ‘British Subject’ and it also shows that you have the right of abode in the UK
- ‘British Overseas Territories Citizen’ who has that citizenship because of a connection with Gibraltar (note that this is not true of most British Overseas Territories Citizens)
A ‘British National (Overseas)’ does not count as a ‘UK national’ for the purpose of this pdf guide.”
The term is used in the eligibility criteria for the following categories of ‘home’ student:
- ‘UK national or Irish citizen’
- 'Family member of a UK national'
- 'Brexit temporary offer for courses starting before 2028: UK nationals and family with residence in Europe or overseas territories'
- 'Brexit temporary offer for courses starting before 2028: Settled and exercised a right of residence'
- 'Residence in Gibraltar'
Downloading the pdf guide
Please only use Version 4 of the pdf guide from now on. It is dated 27 March 2024.
Students can download Version 4 of the pdf guide (‘Who pays ‘home’ fees for HE in Northern Ireland?’) from the UKCISA website. UKCISA members will probably prefer to use the member copy of Version 4 - it can be downloaded by UKCISA members from section 2.5 of the fees section of the UKCISA online manual (look in the Resources box at the bottom of the page). It includes useful additional footnotes.
As explained at the beginning of the pdf, it is a ‘living’ document and readers should expect to see it develop over time. Please always use only the most recent version.
