Wed, 23 Jan 2013
Evidence reaches us from Sweden that some of the next generation of UK workers is looking to bypass Britain’s hiked-up university fees.

Sweden’s Lund University, which offers some programmes taught in English, reports receiving 639 applications from the UK to start in the next academic year, a 15% rise on 558 last year.

Studying in Sweden is free for all EU citizens. Students who do not hold a European Union passport are subject to tuition fees.

As of the start of the current academic year, UK universities may charge up to £9,000 per year in tuition fees, although differences in the rules across the UK means that students from Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales will often not pay that if studying in their respective home nations.

• Evidence that UK students are thinking about their careers at an ever-earlier age has been revealed by graduate job board graduate-jobs.com. Analysis of its 626,500 users, tracking when they signed up to the job site against the years they graduated, found 22% of current students starting to search for jobs before the final year of their degree, compared to just 5% in 2002.