With the fallout from Brexit affecting everything from international trade to infrastructure, it was perhaps inevitable that Britain’s architecture and design schools would suffer as well. However, new data shows that European students may still want to study art and design in the U.K. after all.
According to the University and Colleges Admissions Service cited by Dezeen, there was an overall 6 percent rise in the number of E.U. students from outside the U.K. who applied to take arts and design courses at British universities this year. This is part of an overall 15 percent increase in the total number of overseas applications to such programs, despite a 4 percent decline in domestic applications. More specifically, University of the Arts London says it’s seen a 9 percent increase in E.U. applicants this year as well.
The rebound comes after given widespread fears that Brexit would homogenize the cultural makeup of the design student population in the years ahead. In 2016, the Council for Higher Education in Art & Design warned that the Brexit vote “may lead to significant impact on staff and student recruitment, competitiveness, and prestige of U.K. creative higher education and creative industries at a time when global competition in these areas is likely to increase steeply.” Data from 2017 suggested these fears were warranted. E.U. student applications to these programs fell 5 percent overall last year, and the University of Arts London reported that some admitted students from the continent even decided to rescind their acceptance.
Of course, this year’s data might be nothing more than a brief departure from an overall downward trend. European nationals who arrive before the U.K. officially leaves the E.U. in March of 2019 can stay for five years and then apply to remain indefinitely, so it might just be a case of prospective architecture and design students trying to get in under the wire. Still, it’s an encouraging sign that England’s reputation as an international hub for architecture programs and creative coursework might survive in a post-Brexit world after all.
