The UK will rejoin the Erasmus program, but which prospective audiences are aware of this and who is most willing to use the scheme?
The UK recently announced that it will rejoin the Erasmus study scheme after six years away. The agreement means that UK students will be able to take part in the scheme from January 2027, once again enabling British students to spend up to a year studying at a European university without paying additional fees. According to reporting of the announcement, EU students will also be able to enjoy UK study as part of the Erasmus program, though they may be expected to pay an "international fee waiver".
It is believed that more than 100,000 people in the UK could benefit from the Erasmus scheme, not to mention UK universities who will be hoping to see increased interest from EU audiences for whom they may not have previously been on the radar.
But the agreement comes at an interesting time. 2020 was the last year in which students could enjoy these benefits in the UK, meaning 6 successive cohorts have entered higher education without even considering Erasmus as a possibility. Therefore, the success of the agreement will rely, in part, on the effectiveness of its communication.
To gauge how that is going, we asked the prospective students on Keystone platforms:
a. Were you already aware that the UK will rejoin the Erasmus program from 2027?
and
b. Would you be interested in studying abroad via Erasmus?
Lets look at the results.
Who is aware of the UK rejoining Erasmus?
Below, we see a chart displaying the results of our question of awareness:
Awareness of the UK rejoining the Erasmus scheme is higher for British audiences. This is to be expected as the story gained a lot of traction in UK media when first announced, and there is also an argument that the news is of greater importance for British audiences. Those from the EU never lost access to the Erasmus program. They lost access to the UK via Erasmus, but that is a much less significant change than those from the UK losing access to all Erasmus destinations.
Awareness elsewhere is lower, however, at least 32% of audiences even outside of the EU are aware of the agreement, over a year before it comes into effect. Which demonstrates the reach of a positive story.
Who wants to use Erasmus?
Now we have a gauge on awareness, it's time to investigate who says they want to utilize the benefits offered by the Erasmus program. Again, we see the data split by audience region:
The data reveals that British audiences are the least intent on taking advantage of the Erasmus program, despite being the most aware of its return - by contrast, EU audiences are 19% more likely to say they intend to use it. That said, still more than half of our British respondents said they would use the Erasmus program and they are the most curious audience, with around 1/3 selecting 'Maybe'.
One explanation for this may be that British audiences have low awareness of what the Erasmus program entails. The UK left the program over five years ago so current audiences have little to no 'memory' of what the scheme offers - many of those that will enter higher education during the 2027/28 academic year would have been 11 years old when the UK originally left.
Comparatively, EU audiences have always existed in a world where the Erasmus scheme is available and visible. They know the offer and the benefits, whereas Brits will need to build that back up again. It may, therefore, be prudent for UK institutions to not only raise awareness of the return of the Erasmus program, but also to emphasize the advantages it offers.