Finances
The general principle for exchange is that tuition fees at your host are not payable but you will usually be responsible for your maintenance, travel, visa and insurance costs whilst you are abroad. Student Finance provide grant support towards these costs as outlined on the Student Finance website.
Our Student Funding Unit can advise you on all aspects of student funding when you study abroad, including home tuition fee reductions, bursaries and scholarships.
Tuition fees
Whilst you do not pay tuition fees at your host university you will still be responsible for University of Plymouth tuition fees. However if you select to undertake an exchange for a full academic year, your home tuition fee is reduced by 85% - it stays at 100% if you go for only one semester.
Maintenance costs
For Bilateral exchanges you will have to cover your food and accommodation costs.
For ISEP exchanges, we will charge you an ISEP Exchange Program Fee for the food and accommodation costs of the student taking your place here and, in return, you will get an equivalent housing and meal benefit from your host for your living costs. Our fees for 2021/22 are £7,760 for the full year, £3,760 for semester 1 and £4,000 for semester 2. You will be invoiced by us for your fee shortly before you depart on your exchange and you can pay it by instalments as you receive your maintenance loan instalments.
Notifying Student Finance
You must make sure you notify Student Finance, in June/July, of your intention to study abroad in the following year. When you do this, they will send you a Course Abroad form which has to be filled-in by you, signed by a representative of the University, usually Plymouth Global, and sent back, by you, to Student Finance. Receipt of your completed form triggers the tuition fee reduction (for full-year exchanges only), access to the means-tested, enhanced maintenance loan and the availability of a travel grant, again means-tested, whereby you can claim back a significant proportion of your travel, visa and insurance costs incurred on your year abroad.
Accommodation
Your
host university will usually offer you accommodation in their halls. However, if
you prefer to go elsewhere:
The Global Graduates
website has location-specific accommodation advice as well as more general
advice on studying and working abroad.
The Guardian’s Global Student
series published, in May 2015, an article on “How
to find accommodation for your year abroad”.
These websites offer student accommodation, mainly in Europe: