How Britain’s young people will be harmed by the EU-UK Reset and its Youth Mobility Scheme

By Catherine McBride OBE

About the Author

Catherine McBride is an economist specialising in trade. Catherine was a member of the UK’s Trade and Agriculture Commission from 2021 to 2024, scrutinising the UK’s trade agreements with Australia, New Zealand and the CPTPP. She received her OBE for her work explaining economics and trade to both politicians and the public. Before working in trade policy, she was a derivatives trader covering global commodity markets from London. Catherine has written several think tank papers on economics, trade, and taxes; authors her own Substack, Catherine McBride’s Substack; writes for Briefings for Britain, Global Britain, and The Critic; and appears regularly on TV, radio, and podcasts.

About the Publisher

The Great British Business Council was established to enhance public and political understanding of the advantages a thriving business community provides to the UK’s security, standard of living, and wellbeing. It aims to support British firms and small businesses by promoting well-crafted, practical, evidence-based policy reforms that foster enterprise and innovation. It is independent of any political party, as it hopes that all parties will consider adopting the straightforward, practical policy suggestions it proposes.

The GBBC was funded by private donations from concerned citizens who want the UK to thrive economically, as it once did.

If you would like to join us or donate to our cause, please contact us at: [email protected] or follow us on LinkedIn, X, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, and Bluesky.

Publications from the Great British Business Council

• Premeditated Industrial Destruction: How the UK destroyed its industry and the path to reverse this
• Unconditional Surrender: Why the EU Reset is bad for British taxpayers, youths, and businesses
• CBAM! A punch to the face of British business

Contents

• Introduction
• Putting people at the centre of the EU-UK relationship
• How much are UK University fees
• The true cost of EU students
• UK youth unemployment is rising due to wage and employment tax increases
• How many EU nationals could come to the UK under the Youth Mobility Scheme?
• Erasmus+
  • Who can participate
• Grants for Strategic Partnerships and Jean Monnet funding
• What else could the UK do with £810 million?
• Massive UK student debt for a real degree, but taxpayer subsidies for EU short course jollies
• How much will this cost?
• Conclusion

Introduction

The full report from the Great British Business Council, Unconditional Surrender, reviews the UK-EU Reset negotiated by Nick Thomas-Symonds, the former European Relationship Minister, in May 2025.

The agreement covers an array of key policy areas, including defence, youth mobility, energy, trade, farming, food manufacturing, internal security, and irregular migration, and in each of these areas, the UK will be forced to adopt the EU’s laws and agree to implement any future laws as and when they are enacted by the EU. This also means that these laws will fall under the exclusive jurisdiction of the European Court of Justice, with no ability for the UK’s government, parliament, or courts to alter them.

Regarding youth mobility, the UK would be expected to subsidise EU youths up to the age of 30 to freely move to the UK and benefit from subsidised university fees, free NHS access, and the ability to bring their family members with them. The cost would be lost revenue for UK universities, lost revenue for the NHS from Immigration Health Surcharge payments, and lost opportunities for UK youth, who would have to compete with 3 million unemployed EU youths for jobs and with 19 million EU students for UK university places.

In addition to the Youth Mobility Scheme, the Reset would require the UK to pay £570 million from 1 January 2027 to join the Erasmus+ programme, rising to £810 million from 1 January 2028. Assuming similar participant levels as when the UK was an EU member, this represents an increase from approximately £14,850 per British student participating in the Erasmus+ programme in the five years before Brexit to £42,100 per participant from 2028 onwards under the Reset.

Negotiations for the Reset are expected to resume on 20 November 2026, when the operational details of the youth scheme are expected to be finalised. According to the Financial Times, this will include the number of EU 18- to 30-year-olds able to come to the UK and what rights to work and study they would be entitled to, with the UK initially offering 50,000 places per year and Brussels pushing for 150,000.

EU member states are reportedly digging in their heels over subsidised UK ‘home fees’ for EU students, which our research finds would cost British universities up to £3 billion per year in lost tuition fees if 150,000 students are granted this subsidy. Thankfully though, UK officials have suggested they are not willing to waive international fees for EU students. The two sides also disagree on how long a Youth Mobility Scheme should last, with the UK and EU arguing for two and three years, respectively.

Focusing exclusively on the effects of the Reset’s proposed Youth Mobility Scheme, this paper reviews the European Commission’s offer, scrutinises the Labour government’s claims about why the Reset is necessary, explains the costs of accepting the EU’s offer, and offers alternatives that would better suit Britain.

This is not simply an argument about Brexit or Britain’s relationship with Europe. It is a question of whether the UK should pay billions of pounds to adopt rules over which it has no say, without any guarantee that it would strengthen the economy. We strongly believe this is the wrong course of action for Britain, and that Parliament should abandon the Reset.

Our full report, Unconditional Surrender! is available online and can be downloaded for free on our website: https://gbbc.uk/

Putting people at the centre of the EU-UK relationship

This section covers youth mobility schemes, work visas, discounted student fees, and the UK paying to join the EU’s Erasmus+ programme. It was sold to the UK population as a way for UK citizens to glide through EU airports using e-gates when travelling to the EU, but shortly after the agreement was announced, it became apparent that e-gate use is a national competency and outside the EU’s control. Middle-class parents in the UK imagine that the youth mobility scheme will allow their children to work as chalet girls and ski instructors, but in the past, the reality of youth mobility and Erasmus+ schemes has been a large number of EU youth coming to the UK to work as baristas and labourers.

The European Commission hasn’t published an official negotiating Document since the Common Understanding was agreed to in May 2025, but this may be because they published one in April 2024, when the Sunak Government was in power. Who knew?

The European Commission document, COM(2024) 169 final, was published on 18 April 2024. According to this document:

However, despite the 2019 European Union-United Kingdom Joint Political Declaration (which addressed youth mobility), the United Kingdom declined to enter into negotiations on mobility during the 2020 negotiations.^1,2 Consequently, the Trade and Cooperation Agreement does not address the question of mobility of persons between the Parties to the Agreement. The Trade and Cooperation Agreement includes, however, provisions on social security coordination that support the possibility for mobility of persons under the domestic law of either Party and is therefore an enabler of mobility.³

At the time, the UK was negotiating youth mobility schemes with individual EU Member States, based on the UK’s youth mobility visa schemes it had agreed with other non-EU countries. The European Commission was not happy about this (even though temporary visas are a national competency of member states), as it claimed it would have resulted in different treatment of European Union members and because the EU believed individual country visa schemes would not address the ‘main barriers to mobility’. So, what did the EU think were the main barriers to youth mobility? They weren’t concerned that EU citizens could visit the UK without a visa for up to six months, even though the EU only allows UK nationals to spend 90 days in a 180-day period in the EU without a visa. Instead, they were concerned that the UK has no specific visa path for au pairs (young adult foreigners employed by a host family), which seemed trivial. But the EU’s major concern was that EU students now had to pay the same fees as ‘foreign students’. (Quelle Horreur!) The relevant passage is below (emphasis added):

Furthermore, students from the Union are now subject to very high tuition fees applicable to foreign students when seeking to undertake studies (in particular higher education and doctoral studies) in the United Kingdom compared to the fees paid by domestic students. They also have more difficult access, or no access, to related benefits (e.g. scholarships, student loans).

They were also concerned that traineeships, internships, or apprenticeships are considered ‘work’ in the UK and therefore subject to UK minimum wage rules.⁴ It is unclear why they thought this was a problem. The document goes on to claim that the EU is interested in its young people acquiring skills and developing talent, including across borders and beyond the EU, provided, of course, that those foreign countries’ taxpayers are willing to subsidise EU students. The subject of student fees comes up again; the EU admits that many of its member states have working holiday visas; these programmes ‘do not address issues such as university tuition fees or equal treatment to nationals’.

In every part of the UK-EU Reset agreement, the EU is demanding payments from the UK, and in the Youth Mobility section, it wants payments in kind: subsidised university fees, access to UK student loans, and access to UK scholarships. They also want EU youths to have free access to the NHS without paying the Immigration Health Surcharge like other ‘foreign students’.

How much are UK University fees

UK university fees are capped for UK students but not for international students. All international students pay the same fees whether they are from China or Czechia, India or Italy, and Australia or Austria. International student fees help subsidise UK students’ fees, but there is no reason they should also subsidise EU students’ fees. Especially as the EU has seven times as many youths aged 18 to 25 as the UK. Allowing EU youths to have subsidised places at UK universities would drive up prices for all other international students.

The current standard full-time undergraduate capped fees in England in 2025/6 were £9,535 per year. In August 2026, the fee cap increased to £9,790, and it will increase to £10,050 in 2027. The cap on university fees only applies to UK nationals. International students can pay between £15,000 and £25,000 for a humanities subject at a standard university, and between £23,000 and £33,000 to attend Oxbridge or University College London (UCL). Engineering and other laboratory-based subjects cost between £18,000 and £33,000 at standard universities, and between £28,000 and £40,000 for UCL, Imperial, and Oxbridge. Medical school fees are even more expensive, with most charging £30,000 to £55,000 a year, and Oxbridge and Imperial charging £40,000 to £55,000 a year for a minimum 5-year degree.

The House of Lords European Affairs Committee (2024) heard submissions from Universities UK and the Russell Group of Universities, who substantially agree that international fee income is critical to UK university finances, and that reintroducing home fee status to EU students would create significant financial pressures for universities. Similarly, the Office for Students Financial Sustainability Report stated that: ‘Providers rely increasingly on income from international students to offset losses on teaching UK students.’ By capping UK student fees at £9,250 from 2017 to 2025, UK universities became more reliant on income from uncapped international student fees.

Because of this impasse over university fees, the 2024 youth mobility negotiations stalled.⁵ The UK Government refused to include fee parity in the youth mobility talks, according to Lord Davies of Gower and the Cabinet Office. On the other side, the EU was insistent that: ‘Equal treatment in access to education, including tuition fees, is a core element of the EU’s position.’

The Commission’s demands are breathtakingly arrogant. Besides equal treatment for EU under 30 year olds with UK nationals, including no healthcare surcharge to use the NHS, they also want their youths to be accompanied by close family members and have the right to ‘family reunification’, with no quotas, no purpose-bound requirements, no time limits, and no discretionary visa application procedures. Their aim was to provide young EU citizens with a clear, simple, and cost-effective path for mobility to the UK, although they generously claimed that their proposal had ‘no budgetary implications’. Presumably, they meant no budgetary implications for the EU – other than lowering EU youth unemployment.

The UK charges all adult immigrants £1,035 per year to access the NHS through the Immigration Health Surcharge, which is already reduced to £776 for students, Youth Mobility Scheme participants, and under-18s. Removing this fee completely for the current 63,000 EU students and the potential 150,000 Youth Mobility Scheme participants would cost the NHS £170 million each year. Allowing them to also pay UK capped university fees rather than international student fees would cost UK universities at least £3 billion in lost revenue.

The EU tried again in June 2025: the results were set out in Council Decision (EU) 2025/1286 of 20 June 2025, published on 1 July 2025. Despite the previous impasse in negotiations, the EU again wanted other international students to subsidise EU students attending UK university courses. They used almost identical reasoning: that the bilateral visa schemes between the UK and various EU members were not addressing the core barrier to youth mobility – ‘university fees’. The EU’s document reiterated that EU Member States determine the volumes of admissions of third-country nationals under Article 79(5) of the TFEU. However, despite this admission, the Commission wanted a ‘supplementing’ youth mobility agreement to be added to the Trade and Cooperation Agreement. This would presumably give them the power to threaten to withdraw from the trade agreement if the UK did not admit sufficient numbers of EU students to UK universities.

The true cost of EU students

There are many reasons why the UK should not allow EU students to attend UK universities, have their student fees subsidised by other international students, or borrow money from the UK Student Loan programme to pay those fees.

The most obvious reason for not reestablishing a youth mobility scheme is that, before Brexit, when there was free movement between the UK and other EU nations, far more young people came to the UK than went in the other direction. This was never an equal agreement.

In 2020/21, the last year before Brexit, 152,905 EU students were enrolled in UK higher education institutions, paying the same fees as UK students, of £9,250 per year.⁶ This was not an unusual number, although the trend was increasing; in 2019/20 there were 147,800 EU students, in 2018/19 there were 146,565, in 2017/18 there were 142,840, and in 2016/17 there were 138,040.

After Brexit, EU students could still study in UK universities if they were offered a place. However, an EU national studying at a UK university now pays the same amount as any other international student. In 2024/25, the number of EU students studying in UK universities had dropped to 63,600, while the number of non-EU students had increased to 621,970.⁷ This change had happened gradually, with EU student numbers falling as non-EU student numbers grew. But the increase in university revenues is enormous. The minimum difference in fees for UK students and non-EU students is £5,500 per year; the 100,000 more non-EU international students replacing EU students increase university revenues by at least £550 million, while the 63,600 EU students now paying full international fees add at least another £350 million. This totals £900 million, assuming the minimum fee level. Some publications have claimed the average tuition price paid by international students is between £22,000 and £26,000 per year. Using the higher price, the loss to UK universities would be £3 billion each year.⁸ Why would anyone want to stop UK universities earning this amount of money? Educating foreign students is a valuable UK export industry. These students not only pay for their education, but also for accommodation and living expenses. Each student is estimated to add about £100,000 to the UK economy every year.

Besides the opportunity costs, the old system had another downside: EU students could obtain student loans. By 2020, around 120,000 EU students had taken out UK student loans. Unfortunately, EU student loan repayment rates have been much lower than those of UK students, because many EU graduates left the UK after graduating. In 2020, EU students owed £5.3 billion in student loans, and Student Loan Company data show that only about 20-25% of this amount was being actively repaid.⁹ This is not because EU students are less honest, but rather because HMRC can deduct repayments directly from UK student salaries once they start earning above the repayment threshold. Estimates suggest that between 50% and 70% of EU student loans will be written off because enforcement outside the UK is limited, making them unrecoverable.

The UK is now in a very different economic climate than before Brexit: UK unemployment has increased from 3.8% in 2019 to 4.9% in the second quarter of 2026. In the UK, 1.772 million people aged 16 and over are unemployed.¹⁰

But a bigger problem is UK youth (aged 16-24) unemployment, which hit 16.4% in the March-May quarter of 2026. This is about 743,000 people. The UK has 1.01 million young people who are Not in Education, Employment or Training (NEET). That is 13.5% of all young people. This is the first time more than a million 16- to 24-year-olds have been neither employed nor in education or training.¹¹ Allowing European youths, up to the age of 30, free access to the UK labour market will not improve this situation.

UK youth unemployment is rising due to wage and employment tax increases

The UK’s rising unemployment is due to a general economic slowdown driven by higher wages, energy costs, employment taxes, and business taxes. But the UK’s higher youth unemployment can be explicitly blamed on the massive increase in the minimum wage for under-21-year-olds in both 2025 and 2026, coupled with higher employer National Insurance Contributions.

In April 2025, the minimum wage (National Living Wage — NLW) for 18- to 20-year-olds increased by 16.3%, while the NLW for 16- to 17-year-olds and apprentices increased by 18%. In April 2026, the NLW increased again: the rate for 16- to 17-year-olds increased by 6% to £8 per hour; for 18- to 20-year-olds it increased by 8.5% to £10.85; and for workers over 21, it increased by 4.1% to £12.71 per hour,¹² which equates to about £2,200 per month.

In contrast, most EU countries have minimum monthly wages which range from €620 (£530) per month in Bulgaria to €2,771 (£2,368) per month in Luxembourg.¹³ However, EU member states Austria, Denmark, Finland, Italy, and Sweden do not have a statutory minimum wage. UK minimum wages for those over 21 are higher than in any EU country other than Luxembourg, but Luxembourg’s population is under 700,000, of whom 75,600 are 15- to 24-year-olds, and only 24,000 are in the workforce, so although Luxembourg’s youth unemployment rate is 20% to 21%, according to Eurostat, this equates to only 5,000 people.¹⁴ For other unemployed EU youths, travelling to the UK in search of work under the Reset’s Youth Mobility Scheme may look like an attractive option.

Last April, the UK Government also increased the Employer National Insurance Contribution (ENIC) from 13.8% to 15%, and reduced the employer NIC threshold from £9,100 per annum to £5,000 (or £96 per week). In addition, the UK’s Employees’ Rights Bill, currently being implemented in phases, is deterring employers from employing young workers without a history of employment. It is not surprising that the number of unemployed young people in Britain is rising.¹⁵

Youth unemployment is also hitting the graduate jobs market. According to High Flyers, graduate recruitment fell by 5.1% in 2025, following a 14.6% decline in graduate vacancies in 2024.¹⁶ 40% of the UK’s largest employers recruited fewer graduates in 2025, and recruitment fell in 10 of the 15 largest industry sectors. Graduate recruitment is expected to be lower again in 2026. The largest industry declines in graduate recruitment in 2025 were in Oil & energy, down 56.4%, and Chemicals & pharmaceuticals, down 48.6%. Applications for the UK’s leading graduate employers have doubled since 2023, while the number of universities targeted by the country’s top graduate employers in 2025/6 has reduced to an average of just 23 universities. UK graduates don’t need an influx of EU graduates looking for work. And the EU wants the Youth Mobility Scheme to extend to 30-year-olds who may have some employment history.

Britain isn’t the only country facing high youth unemployment. Many EU nations have similar or even worse problems. While some EU countries have such small populations that the high unemployment rate isn’t very significant, others have much higher absolute figures for youth unemployment. For instance, France’s 21.1% youth unemployment translates to approximately 730,000 unemployed young people, while Spain’s 23.4% youth unemployment translates to approximately 456,000 unemployed young people. In total, there were 2.987 million unemployed under-25s in the EU in June 2026, up from 2.934 million a year ago (see table below).¹⁷

Before Brexit, many young EU nationals worked in the UK’s catering, hospitality, and agricultural sectors, generally at minimum wage rates. At the time, British employers welcomed them. But now, the UK catering and hospitality sector is employing fewer people as it suffers from high energy costs, higher wages, and a population with less disposable income to spend in pubs and restaurants, while UK agriculture is suffering from unusually hot and dry weather. Unsurprisingly, industries are cutting their workforce; inviting EU youths up to the age of 30 to the UK under the Youth Mobility Scheme will only exacerbate the UK’s own youth employment problem.

This will be made worse by the Government’s intention to reduce the number of hours staff can work on zero-hours contracts before employers must legally offer them a contract with guaranteed hours and pay compensation for cancelled shifts. The Department of Business and Trade estimates that this could cost employers up to £2.9 billion annually.¹⁸

How many EU nationals could come to the UK under the Youth Mobility Scheme?

The UK government has yet to decide how many EU nationals will be able to come to the UK under the Youth Mobility Scheme. The UK currently has 3-year youth mobility schemes with Australia (35,000 places), New Zealand (13,000 places), Canada (8,000 places), Japan (1,500 places), South Korea (1,000 places), Hong Kong (1,000 places), and Taiwan (1,000 places), as well as schemes with San Marino, Monaco, and Iceland that total less than 1,000 places. These schemes do not entitle students to attend UK universities at reduced UK national fees; instead, their youth mobility visas require students to pay full international student fees and the youth NHS health surcharge.

The EU wants the UK to grant youth mobility visas to EU 18- to 30-year-olds in the same proportion of its population as the UK grants mobility visas to young Australians. This would amount to nearly 600,000 young people. The EU also wants the UK to extend Youth Mobility visas to four years instead of three, extend the definition of ‘youths’ to 18- to 30-year-olds, instead of the previous 18 to 24 age range, and grant EU youth free access to the National Health Service, allow them to ‘exercise the right to family reunification’, and be eligible for UK taxpayer-subsidised university tuition fees, as already discussed.

However, the main difference between UK youth mobility with the EU and with the Commonwealth countries listed above is that, as English-speaking countries, their reciprocal youth visas are much more popular with young Britons. For example, in the 2024-2025 financial year, Australia issued 79,000 visas to UK nationals under its youth mobility scheme; New Zealand issued several thousand and has an annual quota of 15,000 visas; and Canada’s quota is 9,000 to 10,000 visas. In 2024, the UK granted just 24,437 Youth Mobility Visas to nationals from 13 partner countries, including 9,754 to Australians, 4,304 to New Zealanders, and 3,060 to Canadians.¹⁹ In 2024, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada alone issued 68,495 visas to young people from the UK.²⁰ So, almost three times as many UK youths went to Australia, New Zealand, or Canada as came to the UK. This is unlikely to be the case under the new UK-EU youth mobility scheme, where many more EU nationals speak English and can work or study in the UK, whereas very few UK nationals speak European languages well enough to do either. Young Britons mainly learn only one of the EU’s 25 official languages, generally French, German, Spanish, or Italian, limiting the number of EU countries where they can work or study. There are also fewer internationally recognised EU universities of the same calibre as Cambridge, Oxford, Imperial, or UCL. Meanwhile, Young Britons are unlikely to find work in EU countries, regardless of their limited language skills, because the EU has higher youth unemployment than the UK.

The estimated losses from subsidised student fees for existing EU students and, potentially, an additional 150,000 students who are exempt from the Immigration Health Surcharge will cost universities £3 billion a year in lost revenues, the NHS almost £170 million, and potentially hit taxpayers for another £5 billion in unpaid student loans. But the highest cost will be the loss of opportunities for British youth, who will have to compete with EU youth for student places and jobs.

Like other aspects of the Reset, the Youth Mobility Scheme will predominantly help the EU.

Erasmus+

Despite the UK failing to agree to the EU’s terms for the Youth Mobility Scheme, the EU Relations Minister, Nick Thomas-Symonds MP, responsible for negotiating the Reset, agreed to join the EU’s Erasmus+ programme. This was announced on 17^th December 2025, when most people were preparing for Christmas and Parliament was in Recess. Thomas-Symonds agreed that the UK would participate in the EU’s Erasmus+ scheme from January 1^st January 2027, and that we, the nation, would pay £570 million in the 2027/28 academic year for this dubious privilege. This is apparently a discounted rate, and the following year the UK will have to pay £810 million, even though very few UK students used the scheme when we were EU members.

Who can participate:

Any public or private body may apply for Erasmus+ funding if they are active in the fields of education, training, youth, and sport from the EU, the EEA, and the EU candidate countries that have chosen to participate in the programme: Turkey, the Republic of North Macedonia, and the Republic of Serbia. In addition, groups of young people who are active in youth work, but not necessarily within a youth organisation, may also apply for funding for learning mobility for young people and youth workers, youth participation activities, and the DiscoverEU Inclusion Action. Some Erasmus+ programmes are open to third countries that are not associate Erasmus+ countries.

Payments into EU programmes are based on a country’s GDP. The amount is unrelated to how many students from that country use the scheme to travel to other EU countries. Nor does it reflect the number of EU participants who chose to study or train in another participating country.

In 2020, the Erasmus programme budget was €3.37 billion, according to the European Commission.²¹ This was also the last year of the UK’s Erasmus membership; only 55,681 participants were enrolled in the various Learning Abroad schemes associated with the UK.²² This is broken down as follows: 28,334 Higher Education Students, 13,708 in Vocational Education and Training, 9,842 Youths, 2,550 School Education, and 1,247 Adult Education. But these weren’t all British participants. According to the same document, only 16,437 were ‘outgoing students and trainees’ and 1,493 were ‘outgoing staff’.²³ The rest were ‘incoming’. So, at best, 17,930 British participants used the scheme in 2019/20. The amount the UK paid for this isn’t published, as it was part of their general contribution to the EU. However, 18,000 participants per year wasn’t unusual for the UK.²⁴ In the chart below, UK ‘outgoing’ students were around 9,000 each year, while trainees and staff numbers were generally lower but increased as Brexit approached, suggesting teachers and trainees knew these jollies would be lost.²⁵

The UK’s Brexit negotiators considered whether the UK should remain a participant in Erasmus+ after Brexit, as an associate member like the EEA countries, Serbia, North Macedonia, and Turkey. However, they rejected the option because it was considered to be ‘poor value for the money’. The Johnson Government was asked to pay £2 billion into Erasmus funding for the seven-year budget from 2021 to 2027. This would have amounted to £285.7 million per year. Now Thomas-Symonds has agreed that UK taxpayers should pay the EU £570 million for 2027 alone.

The Johnson Government was right to consider Erasmus poor value for money. Dividing the £285.7 million per year the EU demanded by the average annual number of outgoing UK participants from 2014/15 to 2019/20, the UK was paying £14,850 per Erasmus+ participant. This was 60% higher than UK university fees at the time. But the Starmer Labour Government has agreed to pay twice that amount!

It is mind-boggling that Thomas Symonds would try to convince the UK population that his £570 million payment to the EU is a 30% discount. It is a 99.5% increase! And the so-called ‘discount’ is only for one year, after which the UK will be required to pay 16% of the total Erasmus+ budget, equal to £810 million annually, to the EU. If we assume a similar level of UK participation in the scheme, Erasmus will cost £42,100 per participant per year from 2028 onwards.

The proposed Erasmus+ budget for 2028 to 2034 is €40.8 billion, up from €26.2 billion in the current EU 2021-27 multiannual framework.²⁶ If the UK agrees to pay £810 million per year, it would be paying about €6.5 billion – 16% of the total Erasmus+ budget. The £2 billion Johnson rejected was only 11% of the total Erasmus budget and only 0.01% of the UK’s GDP. If the OBR’s projections for UK GDP are correct, £570 million would be 0.02% of UK GDP in 2027, while £810 million would be 0.03% of UK GDP in 2028. This is not a good deal for the UK; this money could be better spent on UK students attending a full-time degree programme or an apprenticeship course.

EU members pay for Erasmus through their EU budgetary contributions, while associate members, Norway, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Türkiye, North Macedonia, and Serbia, pay a negotiated amount that is not published but is likely to reflect the country’s relative GDP. However, the EU does publish the grants it gives to these countries (see the table below) and how many of their students used the scheme (see charts below).²⁷ For example, in 2022, 77,552 Turkish students and staff went abroad on Erasmus+ funding, but in 2023, that number dropped to just under 60,000.²⁸

Grants for Strategic Partnerships and Jean Monnet funding

Erasmus+ funding covers more than learning abroad; it also provides grants for Strategic Partnerships and Jean Monnet Actions.²⁹

Jean Monnet Actions promote European Union integration, and even non-EU members, such as Turkey, Norway, Serbia, North Macedonia, Iceland, and Liechtenstein, receive contributions to these programmes.³⁰ The programmes include teaching posts for professors specialising in EU studies; Jean Monnet Centres of Excellence to promote EU integration studies; Jean Monnet Networks and Projects; and EU-related teaching in schools and vocational education and training. Strategic Partnership grants support the integration and dissemination of teaching methods, student and staff exchanges, institutional cooperation, and the ‘strengthening of transnational capacity’ (whatever that means). Turkey, Serbia, and North Macedonia have all received substantial grants for Strategic Partnership programmes, despite not being EU or EEA members.

The Chart below details the grants awarded to each participating country under Erasmus funding. Non-EU countries are highlighted in light blue.

The charts below are from the Erasmus+ 2023 Student, Trainee, and Staff Participant Data. The first chart shows outgoing participants by country, and the second shows incoming participants by country. The major difference is in the scale of the Y-axis. The first chart is in thousands, the second in tens of thousands. Unsurprisingly, the number of outgoing participants is generally proportional to the country’s total population. Though it isn’t always. Spain’s student population is only about 60% of Germany’s, but it sends almost as many students on Erasmus programs. At the same time, incoming participants appear to choose the largest country with the best weather; Spain, France and Italy are three of the top four destinations.

What else could the UK do with £810 million?

£810 million is a lot of money. The UK student fee cap will increase to £10,050 per year from 2027, so the £810 million could have funded tuition for 80,600 UK students to attend UK universities free of charge. Alternatively, it could fund tuition and accommodation for approximately 25,000 UK students.

Wouldn’t this be a more effective use of the funds? Especially if the Labour Government’s intention is to help disadvantaged students, as it claims. Many students from low-income families choose the nearest university so they can continue living at home; going away to university is financially out of reach. Unless, of course, they apply to study in the US.

Talented, disadvantaged British students may be offered a ‘full ride’ at a US college, covering tuition and fees, room and board, books and supplies, living expenses, and spending money for student activities. Some of the bursaries even include airfare back to the UK during the holidays. Full-ride scholarships are available at Duke, USC, Vanderbilt, Chicago, Yale, and Harvard, among others.³¹

Why did the UK agree to pay so much to join Erasmus+ when so few UK students use it? Imagine if the government used the £810 million to establish a similar full-scholarship scheme in the UK instead of giving it to the EU.

Massive UK student debt for a real degree, but taxpayer subsidies for EU short course jollies

It is absurd to expect bright and talented British children to take on massive debts to pay for their tuition and board, whether they attend a UK university or a drama school, while their government pays into an EU scheme that subsidised only 55,681 participants a year when we were members of the EU. Of those participants, only 17,930 were UK students, trainees, and teachers travelling to other EU destinations for jaunts lasting between 2 days and 12 months.

The average outstanding debt of a UK graduate after a 3-year degree is around £47,730 in England, £44,830 in Wales, £29,180 in Northern Ireland, and £21,000 in Scotland.³² If these students continue to live and work in the UK, their student loan repayments will be deducted from their PAYE income. The minimum wage for full-time work is £26,437 before tax. Hopefully, most graduates will earn more than this, so they will repay their loans at 9% of their income above the repayment threshold.^33,34 For English students who took out loans since 2023, the repayment threshold is £25,000 and will remain at this level until 2027; for Scottish students, the threshold is £33,795 and will increase with the Retail Price Index. For English and Welsh students who took out loans between 2012 and 2023, the repayment threshold is £29,385, and it will be frozen at this level for the next three years.

And the debt keeps on growing. Someone who borrowed £27,000 in 2012 to pay tuition fees of £9,000 per year, but has not repaid any of the debt, would now owe between £44,000 and £57,000. The repayment threshold for Plan 2 (undergraduate loans taken in 2012) is £28,470, and the interest rate is capped at RPI plus 3% for annual incomes over £51,245.³⁵ If the student doesn’t repay the loan after 30 years, the loan, plus interest, will be ‘written off’, meaning UK taxpayers will pay it. By which time it would be between £65,000 and £140,000. The current Plan 5 loans last 40 years and carry a lower interest rate equal to the March RPI. However, extending the loan term by 10 years will increase the total amount owed if the loan is written off, so taxpayers will still be stung. This is another reason why the massive unpaid EU student debt is such a problem, and why we must avoid allowing EU students to access the UK’s student loan program again.

If only our Paymaster General, also Nick Thomas Symonds, could have found a big pile of money to help subsidise disadvantaged British students attending UK tertiary education, or to support students researching subjects that are important but unlikely to lead to high-paying careers. If only…

How much will this cost?

In total, the Youth Mobility and Erasmus+ program will cost at least £4 billion a year (if the EU secures its ask of 150,000 youth mobility places a year), and potentially at least another £5 billion in unpaid student loans. As interest rates are much higher now than before Brexit, unless the Government makes arrangements to recoup loan repayments from EU Member States’ tax collectors, we should expect this unpaid loan amount to be much higher in the future. In addition, British youths will lose student places and employment opportunities, but this is impossible to estimate.

Conclusion

The EU Reset is an expensive loss of UK sovereignty for very little in return.

In terms of education, the UK’s universities have filled all the places vacated by subsidised EU students before Brexit with full fee-paying international students, including 63,000 from the EU; the UK has no need to pay to join the EU’s Youth Mobility scheme or Erasmus+. We can only hope Andy Burnham rejects EU demands to waive international fees for EU students when negotiations resume next month. However, that still wouldn’t make up for the NHS’s lost income, the opportunities lost for UK youths who will suddenly be forced to compete with 3 million EU youths for jobs, or the massive increase in Erasmus+ payments to Brussels.

All that will come from the EU Reset is a massive bill, and subservience to the EU and the ECJ. The table below summarises the total estimated costs of each section of the Reset. It is incredible to see that the estimated costs amount to £17.6 billion in 2027, increasing to £20.5 billion per annum by the 2030s, with an additional £12 billion in one-off compliance costs. This does not include other potential costs, such as the loss of the UK’s Agtech industry if the government cannot secure a regulatory carve-out.

Our conclusion from this paper and advice to the Government is that the Government must reject this Reset.

References

1. Political declaration setting out the framework for the future relationship between the EU and the UK (OJ C 34, 31.1.2020, p.1. This Declaration said that: ‘the Parties agree to consider conditions for entry and stay for purposes such as research, study, training and youth exchanges.’
2. ‘Mobility’ in the sense of the envisaged agreement implies the residence of a natural person, i.e. a non-temporary stay. Thus, the envisaged agreement does not address matters of travel facilitation, nor does it address the temporary provision of services through the presence of a natural person in the territory of the other Party.
3. See Article 488 to 491 and the Protocol on Social Security Coordination of the Trade and Cooperation Agreement
4. UK Government, Employment rights and pay for interns, 28 August 2026 (link)
5. Politico, UK-EU summit at risk as youth visa talks hit fresh obstacle, 10 June 2026 (link)
6. UK Department for Education and Higher Education Statistics Agency, High education student statistics UK: 2020 to 2021, 25 January 2022 (link)
7. HESA, Higher Education Student Statistics: UK, 2024/25 – Where students come from and go to study, 27 January 2026 (link)
8. Gable Team, Cost of studying in the UK for international students (2026), 4 June 2026 (link)
9. House of Commons Library, Student Loan Statistics, 15 July 2026 (link)
10. ONS, Employment in the UK: August 2026, (link)
11. House of Commons Library, Youth unemployment statistics, 18 August 2026 (link)
12. Low Pay Commission, The National Minimum Wage in 2026, 1 April 2026, (link)
13. Eurostat, Minimum wage statistics, 1 July 2026 (link)
14. Statistics Portal – Luxembourg, Lower migration, low fertility: the demographic slowdown continues, 6 May 2026 (link)
15. Department for Business, Innovation, Science and Trade and Department for Business & Trade, Plan to Make Work Pay and Employment Rights Act: timeline update, 25 August 2026 (link)
16. High Flyers, Graduate Market in 2026, (Link)
17. Eurostat, Euro area unemployment at 6.3%, 30 July 2026 (link)
18. Department of Business and trade, Analysis to support public consultation on reforms to zero hours and similar contracts, 12 August 2026, (Link)
19. Home Office, Immigration system statistics data tablets, 27 August 2026 (link)
20. The National, Fact check: More people leave than arrive on current youth mobility schemes, 5 June 2025 (link)
21. European Commission, Erasmus+ 2020 in numbers, 2020 (link)
22. Ibid.
23. Ibid
24. European Commission, Erasmus+ 2019 in numbers, 2019 (link)
25. European Commission, Erasmus+ 2018 in numbers, 2018 (link)
26. European Commission, Commission proposes new Erasmus+ beyond 2027, 17 July 2025 (link)
27. European Commission, Data on Erasmus+ in its programme countries, 13 November 2025 (link)
28. European Commission, Data on Erasmus+ in Türkiye in 2023, 12 October 2024 (link)
29. European Commission, Key Action 2: Cooperation among organisations and institutions, 28 August 2026 (link)
30. European Commission, Jean Monnet Actions, 28 August 2026 (link)
31. CollegeVine, 100 Colleges With Full-Ride Scholarships, 6 June 2025 (link)
32. UK comparisons – to financial year 2026 – GOV.UK
33. Low Pay Commission, Minimum wage rates for 2025, 30 October 2024 (link)
34. Student Finance Calculator, Student Finance Repayment Thresholds Explained, 28 August 2026 (link)
35. UK Government, Repaying your student loan, 28 August 2026 (link)