Burden Nigerian Students Bear Abroad

Is studying abroad really worth the money? Rhetorically, she asked. She is a Nigerian student of Birmingham City University. She speaks on what an average foreign student passes through studying abroad.

(Names withheld), to her, this question is very debatable; it is becoming more apparent for Nigerians to study abroad especially for postgraduate degrees. The average cost of studying in the UK as an international student is £11,987 (~US$17,860, N3 Million) and for international postgraduate students the average fee is about £12,390. Although lecture based courses and clinical range from £21,296-£38,532. (N6, 408,572- N11, 435) With this cost this doesn’t take into consideration living costs which are around £12,000 (N3, 611,141), and living in the state capital is highly expensive. With all these highly costs of studying abroad, it comes to mind whether or not students could be in debt. The answer is yes, from a UK student perspective with the cost of high tuition fees, maintenance loans and overdrafts it is expectable to be in debt once completing university. Tuition fees were firstly introduced in the year 1998 with students paying £1,000 a year, with the Labour Government then rising to 3000. In 2012 a coalition between the Conservative/Lib Dem governments announced that universities would be able to charge students £9000 a year for tuition fees. This resulted in a protest by students who were opposed to the raised tuition fees. With all this being said the question is just how is it possible to be in debt, well there are many factors that lead to this. Firstly because of the high tuition fees and maintenance loans, students are expected to pay back between £38100 and £50000 (N11, 465,373 and N15, 046,422). Maintenance loans are normally used for living costs, and with rent costing around £4000 a year, sometimes maintenance loans do not cover this so its either taking out an overdraft or getting a job. With taking out an overdraft it also eventually needs to be paid back, so the statement of being in debt is somewhat true because it could take up to 30 years+ to pay this back, especially with a low income.