Low tuition fees drive more students to Netherlands

Tuition fees really going up in the UK and the effects are more students from the UK now moving to other European universities.

But what it also has is hundreds of students from the UK - and the number is rising.

This is the university application season for UK students - and open day visits now include trips to Dutch universities, which are pitching themselves as if they were offshore Russell Group institutions.

Since tuition fees rose to £9,000 in England there have been repeated forecasts that students would head for cheaper European universities.

Across the Netherlands, there are 2,600 UK students in universities this term - up by a third in a year. And independent school head teachers want Dutch universities to be included in the Ucas application form.

The University of Groningen is a microcosm of this - up by 33% to around 300 UK students, for whom it has had to put on special open days.

This 400 year-old university, second oldest in the Netherlands and in the top 100 of international rankings, now designates itself as an English-speaking institution.

It is running more degree courses taught in English than in Dutch, with students from Germany, China, the UK and the Netherlands itself, all learning in English. (excerpt:Sean Coughlan, Education correspondent)