Britain is Europe’s most popular destination for the continent’s undergraduates, latest data reveals.
It attracted 144,000 students from across Europe in 2016, the same year it voted to leave the European Union.
That is more than double the likes of Austria, France and Poland, who all ranked highly in newly-released figures from Eurostat.
But uncertainty over access to education post Brexit means the UK’s position at the top-of-the-pile could be under threat.
The 97,000 word, 585-page draft Brexit agreement mentions ‘student’ just four times, according to Euronews’ analysis.
“We have been long concerned about the lack of focus on students and education in the Brexit discussions and the continuation of this trend is indeed worrying,” a spokeswoman for the European Students Union told Euronews.
The UK is one of a handful of EU countries that attracts more degree-level students from continents other than Europe.
While it hosted 144,000 from Europe in 2016, nearly 220,000 came from Asia during the same year.
Finland, Cyprus and Ireland also attract more degree students from Asia than they do from Europe.
France takes in more undergraduates from Africa than Europe, while Spain and Portugal have bigger student influxes from central and South America.
Eurostat, which published the data to coincide with International Student Day on November 17, did not have comparable figures for Germany, Slovenia and the Netherlands.
Source: euronews
