A Brexit reset deal is on the verge of being agreed for the UK to rejoin the EU’s Erasmus programme, EU sources have indicated, meaning student exchanges can restart from January 2027.
It comes after The i Paper last week revealed growing optimism that an agreement could be struck by Christmas, amid a desire to end the year on a positive note after the failure to strike a defence deal soured Sir Keir Starmer’s reset of relations with Brussels.
It is understood that discussions are still ongoing on Tuesday night, but optimism was that a formal announcement could come as soon as Wednesday.
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Under the deal universities will be able to apply for an Erasmus Charter for Higher Education (ECHE) to take part in the scheme. The i Paper revealed the EU quietly pushed the deadline back from January to March so Britain could take part.
The Erasmus scheme was established in 1987 and is an EU programme that provides funding for students to participate in education, training or sport in another country for between two and 12 months.
The financial details of the deal will be closely scrutinised as the programme has been criticised for costing Britain money in the past.
When the UK exited the EU, then-prime minister Boris Johnson pulled out of Erasmus. It was deemed too expensive as more Europeans came to Britain to study than went the other way, with students continuing to pay their home tuition fees rather than at their exchange institution.
The resulting cost to Britain has been estimated at between £100m to £200m a year, although Chatham House argued in 2021 that the UK actually made a net profit of £243m as European students “provided a lucrative customer base for the higher education, services and hospitality sectors”.
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In June, the UK cut funding for the £100m Turing scheme that it set up as an alternative to Erasmus, suggesting it could be scrapped or continued in slimmed-down form alongside the EU programme.
The Common Understanding Brexit reset agreement between the UK and EU struck in May said the two sides would negotiate “mutually agreed financial terms” for Erasmus membership, in a sign of where the negotiations are likely to focus.
A senior UK sources said: We want to make sure it’s quite attractive, with people being able to go and do working holidays, work in ski resorts, make choices, ideally across the whole of the EU about what they’re doing. All of that is the way to make it genuinely attractive to UK young people.”