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Britain has announced it will rejoin the European Union’s Erasmus student exchange program in 2027, six years after abandoning the scheme during difficult Brexit negotiations.
The government said rejoining the scheme was a “huge win” for young British people and would ensure “opportunities for everyone from all backgrounds to study and train abroad”.
Erasmus allows students to spend a year at a university abroad while paying the same tuition fees as at a domestic university. The deal also allows Prime Minister Keir Starmer to show the British public that his efforts to improve relations with the EU are starting to bear fruit.
But this fruit came at a price. The UK contribution for the 2027/28 academic year will be £570 million ($760 million). The fee represents a 30% discount on the default terms under the current trade deal with the EU, but is around double the amount the UK paid to join Erasmus while it was an EU member state.
The costly reintroduction of pre-Brexit benefits could raise uncomfortable questions about how and whether the UK benefits from the decision to leave the EU taken in 2016 and implemented in 2020. The topic of leaving the EU remains something of a taboo in British politics – at least on the right – but recent opinion polls show that public opinion towards the EU is softening, with only a minority of Britons able to point to the benefits of leaving the EU.
The foundations for Wednesday’s announcement were laid at the UK-EU summit in May, during which the two sides agreed to “deepen people-to-people ties, especially for young people”. Since coming to power last year, Starmer has emphasized the need for Britain to forge closer ties with the EU after years of conflict over Brexit negotiations.
The Erasmus scheme was scrapped in 2020 by then Conservative Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who claimed it was not value for money. But Chatham House, a London-based think tank, wrote in a 2021 report: “Far from acting as an economic drain, Erasmus has facilitated limited movement of deep-pocketed students into the UK, all the while providing a lucrative customer base for the higher education, hospitality and hospitality sectors.”
The report estimated that the UK received a net benefit of £243 million ($324 million) a year from its participation in Erasmus. Beyond the economic benefits, a 2019 European Commission report found that more than one million “Erasmus babies” (children where one or both parents met while participating in an Erasmus exchange program) have been born since the program began in the 1980s.
Oxford University Vice-Chancellor Eileen Tracey said the program had also strengthened Britain’s position in the world in more subtle ways.
“People love spending time here, even on short visits to the UK,” Tracey told the BBC. “Many of these people will become leaders in the public and private sectors or in their own countries, and that’s a good thing. We contribute to a swirling global talent pool. That’s soft power, that’s soft diplomacy.”
Nick Thomas-Symonds, Britain’s EU relations minister, said Wednesday’s agreement was “about more than just travel, it’s about future skills, academic success and giving the next generation access to the best possible opportunities.”
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who herself studied in the UK, said reinstating the Erasmus program in the UK would open the door to “new shared experiences and lasting friendships” between British and European students.
