Gov touts merits of UK unis after loan extension

| 24/11/2021 | 38 Comments

(CNS): Governor Martyn Roper encouraged Caymanian students to apply for British universities, as he announced that students from the overseas territories planning to study in England in the 2022 to 2023 academic year will be eligible for tuition fee loans. This loan offer does not appear to apply to students at colleges in Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland.

Caymanian students studying in the UK already benefit from being charged the same as British students for their tuition, which is a great deal less than fees for overseas students, but they will now also be eligible to apply for a loan to help them pay those fees if they attend university in England.

“This decision makes it even more attractive for Caymanians to further their education in one of the great English Universities, and in doing so strengthen the UK’s links with Cayman,” Roper said.

“There are currently 300 Caymanian students in UK. Now that the UK has made tuition fee loans available to Overseas Territories students from the 22/23 academic year, I hope there will be many more. This policy demonstrates the UK’s commitment to supporting British Overseas Territories students and will help even more people study at an academic institution in England.”  

Local students studying overseas who met the criteria are eligible to receive government scholarships of up to CI$30,000 per annum. For students studying at UK universities tuition fees are capped at £9,250, as it is for British students resident in the UK, which is around CI$10,663.

See here for more information

Or visit the governor’s Facebook page.


Share your vote!


How do you feel after reading this?
  • Fascinated
  • Happy
  • Sad
  • Angry
  • Bored
  • Afraid
Print Friendly, PDF & Email

Tags:

Category: Education, Local News

Comments (38)

Trackback URL | Comments RSS Feed

  1. Tonie Brown says:

    From my perspective as someone who holds both British passports.
    My son and I went to the UK in 2016, were Welcomed home offered all the benefits available to all UK citizens, we even voted in the Brexit. My son will be returning to Cayman in Feb having accomplished a masters in Accountancy and finance, all with UK gov loans. In my 10 months in the North of England the greatest thing of all was the friendliness and hospitality of the English people, it reminded me of how the Caymanian people were in times past, this I would never forget. Considering myself to be a man of good conscience I cant but help to question why we as Caymanians have every benefit of the UK available to us but when they are here they require a work permit and are treated with disrespect as expats? I am all for one United Kingdom and ohhh if this place does get crazy enough to opt for independence I pray the Lord Jesus that I am financially able to board British Airways for Heathrow terminal 5.

    • Anonymous says:

      All great and fine, happy for your son, but if he received a tuition-fee loan from the Student Loans Company that money has to be paid back to the UK government via HMRC. Also, quite fine that your experience as a migrant to the UK was filled with such joy and elation, unfortunately, the reality for other immigrants is much grimmer than what you describe. It’s a quite simple explanation as to why immigrants from larger “first” world countries would be subjected to greater immigration controls and policies, than immigrants from smaller nations doing the inverse. The Overseas Territories White Paper, presented to parliament in June 2012 addresses your concerns surrounding the rights afforded to British Citizens born in the territories versus those born in the United Kingdom and Crown Dependencies, then emigrating to smaller overseas territories. It is important to note that most BOTC’s were only conferred rights to full British citizenship from 2002 onwards.

      What is utmost unfair, that you have failed to mention is the movement of Local Caymanians/BOTC’S, who migrate to the United Kingdom (mainly England), and are able to claim benefits and grants which do not have the be repaid, but have never lived prior to relocating or worked in the country and have never paid any form of tax which fund these Social benefits such as the NHS, etc. I suspect with the growing number of Caymanians and other BOTC’s increasing this trend, the UK government is going to address this deficiency in the very near future.

    • Anonymous says:

      Northeners are the best!!

  2. C'Mon Now! says:

    You might choose a loan over the scholarship route as I think the gov’t scholarship requires you to come back straight away to work.

    Young Caymanians might be able to better maximize their lifetime earnings by working abroad for a while before coming home to higher level positions and better career prospects.

    Much harder to make an argument about experience when someone has worked in London, New York or Singapore to start their career.

    • Anonymous says:

      I’d agree but I’m pretty sure government is willing to let you work abroad a bit before returning. Or at least that’s what I’ve been told. Id still encourages young Caymanians to apply for the government scholarship. It is an amazing opportunity and a real help. I was lucky enough to be awarded one and it made the world of difference.

    • Anonymous says:

      May be able to defer the work bond if you want to work overseas. The last thing you want when you graduate is to have to pay back a loan, take the free scholarship money. That’s what I did.

    • Anonymous says:

      Except that it doesn’t require that at all.

    • Anonymous says:

      Except that you are viewing this from a skewed, one-sided, industry-specific comparison. Without having to call names many first-generation Caymanians/expatriates did receive most of their professional experience right here in the Cayman Islands. Go and research the largest public and private companies and government statutory authorities and draw your own conclusion. (To be eligible for Permanent Residency, for example, one would have to be resident in the Cayman Islands for a minimum of 8 years, among other requirements).

      Upon leaving University, (for those that did attend) less maybe a year or two in their countries of origin or elsewhere, most of these people have lived and worked in the Cayman Islands for the MAJORITY of their careers. And to be fair most Caymanians also have their work experience limited to the cayman islands, which would make sense…

  3. Anonymous says:

    They hate the British expats but love the passports and tuition loans.

    • Anonymous says:

      The British aren’t expats, they are the owners. You forgot the free vaccines

    • Anonymous says:

      Brexit-loving colonialist guest workers (who likely failed civics classes) hate that Caymanians have equal access and rights to UK domestic services, educations, and NHS, by virtue of their own equivalent BOTC and UK Naturalisations, especially while resident temporarily in the UK. Caymanians with those rights are not alien foreign migrants costing UK taxpayers and don’t owe any abnormal recompense.

  4. Anonymous says:

    Don’t do it. Learn a trade such as plumbing, you’ll be your own boss with skills to work for life.

    Downvote as you wish, but I’m a self made millionaire who’s in Cayman because it’s cheaper to spend $20000 a month chilling by the pool here daily than been a tax slave, funding Mr Ropers lifestyle. I can pack up and leave with a laptop and bitcoin to anywhere in the world. That freedom is worth more than a degree, 3-5 years at some crappy uni living like a peasant, only to come out and no employer even cares because you’ve been replaced by a worker in a cheaper country or by a robot. Be your own job learn a trade now.

    • Learned and travelled says:

      Care to share how you made your millions? For every Bill Gates/Mark Zuckerberg there are 100’s of dropouts who are struggling.
      I wouldn’t says that a degree is crappy or useless. On the contrary, getting that piece of paper (no matter from where) increases the ability to use those skills globally and hence the chance of mobility.
      I agree that learning a trade is also useful and increases the ability to sell oneself, but I wouldn’t encourage an academically inclined person to ditch the university path.

      • Anonymous says:

        Sure, worked everyday for 24 years developing software for small businesses to pay a monthly subscription. Then watched Raoul Pal on real vision saying buy Bitcoin 2 years ago. I’m now rich

        • anon says:

          That’s great for you but I wouldn’t equivocate it to plumbing or electrical work. The latter 2 are more accessible in Cayman (and I wish more would choose these paths) and they are a fine way to make a living but aren’t likely to make one into a millionaire.

    • Anonymous says:

      Slightly confused about how you became a millionaire but I agree with the idea that more Caymanians should learn a trade/go to trade school over going to university. University is not for everyone and I don’t see the point in going unless you truly wish to get a job in the field of study. plumbers, electricians, etc make a shed load of money and there will always be demand for them. It’s nothing to do with intelligence either. Some of the smartest people I’ve met work in trade. It is a sensible and lucrative field.

  5. Anonymous says:

    I think this well benefit nationals of the other OT’s much more than this as we have a fairly generous scholarship scheme. However the UK expats living here with university age kids will be able to apply for the loans if they have been here for three years.

  6. Anonymous says:

    If you want a degree in Political Science and the benefits of Communism, this will be a perfect choice.

  7. Anonymous says:

    So this means that if I am not eligible for a CI scholarship but have lived here for 3 years then the UK will loan me the tuition fee if I am a UK citizen?
    If your Caymanian you get a scholarship for some pretty low grades so I’m not sure how it helps.

  8. Anon says:

    Another freebie from the UK which makes it all the more perplexing why Caymanians hate expats. When you factor in the increasingly hostile and xenophobic attitude of the Cayman Islands government to expats it really makes you wonder why the UK has anything to do with Cayman. Why a British taxpayer should subsidise Caymanian students to be educated when British expat children have to pay for education in Cayman is beyond me. British expats should have voting rights in Cayman and automatic status. Or it is time the UK gave independence to the Cayman Islands.

    • Anonymous says:

      Comments like this are the reason there is animosity towards imported white privilege. Other than a handful at Cayman Prep, how many Status-certified Caymanian kids are truly on this A-Level university track? What is the opportunity cost of those few candidates getting a limited hand-up discount on par with their UK student contemporaries by virtue of their legal standing holding British Overseas Territory Citizenship and/or full UK Naturalization? The UK is not “providing” anything these few don’t already deserve via the merit of their citizenship. Read that sentence again. Nevertheless, let’s plug that perceived “freebie” data into your gratitudometer to see what amount of money you are actually taking issue with, when it comes to UK citizens you don’t like. Not only do you resent their legal rights and standing, you further demand that rights YOU haven’t earned as a guest worker, be issued to you in automatic exchange. Who is the Xenophobe?

      • Anonymous says:

        9:01 why do you have to bring colour into your argument. Sick and tired of hearing the white privilege nonsense spouted in cayman. It may possibly be an issue in the US but we are not the US. As a native-born Caymanian, I have yet to see evidence of so-called “white privilege”. stop stoking the race war.

        • Anonymous says:

          Colour enters the dialogue because the OP, clearly a xenophobic white British guest worker, was conflating Caymanian dual citizens with freeloading migrants and suggesting that some of their countrymen from elsewhere owe them some disproportionate recompense when they are off on safari.

        • Wow. says:

          @25/11/2021 at 2:17 pm – Oh my! You’re tired of hearing about white privilege? Sorry for the inconvenience! Imagine how tired people of color are with having to navigate through life while dealing with the wracial inequalities that permeate every aspect of their lives. You don’t see it’s existence, because it doesn’t negatively impact your life.

          And nobody wants you or anyone else to feel guilty. A simple acknowledgement of the existence of inequality will suffice.

      • Anon says:

        It’s somewhere in the region of £3.000,000 every year. Foreign students pay roughly double what a Caymanian student pays. The UK is £2.2 trillion in debt. Cayman runs a surplus. British kids have to pay to be educated in Cayman yet a Caymanian family can go to the UK get free education, housing, start a business – all for free. Yet British citizens coming to Cayman have to pay for literally EVERYTHING. It’s not right not fair and it has to stop. Equality not inequality. It’s time rights and entitlements were leveled up and if they aren’t why should the UK taxpayer pay for anything in Cayman.

    • Anon. says:

      @25/11/21 at 3:57 am – Dude, you’re commenting on this at 4 in the morning? Clearly, your own toxicity is giving you insomnia.

    • Then become a citizen. says:

      @25/11/2021 at 3:57 am – You neglected to include the fact that the Cayman Islands already has a path to citizenship for you. In the Cayman Islands, ALL expats have a clearly defined path to citizenship, voting rights, the freedom to educate their children in public schools paid for by the citizens of the Cayman Islands, and all other rights and privileges that come with being a citizen of a country. Your demand for voting rights, by mere virtue of being a UK citizen, is not sustainable for a country that is 100 sq. miles in size. Imagine if all UK citizens decided to pick up and move to Cayman?

      You already have a path to the rights and privileges that you demand to have.

      • Anonymous says:

        Exactly. Not only that, but a Caymanian with BOTC or full UK naturalisation is already a student contemporary of UK-resident students, and at least deserves the same financial arrangement as their mother country peers. They aren’t being “given” anything they don’t already deserve as lawful citizens, and yet it’s the whining UK expat guest worker here that lashes out at Territorial inequalities that Roper is trying justifiably to correct. Incredible.

        • Anon says:

          The issue you face is you will be outnumbered in your own jurisdiction in not so long. You really should go for independence because why any low income UK citizen should pay tax to support one of the richest, wealthiest places on earth while £2.2 trillion in debt is beyond reason. Raise yourselves up go for independence. Really I would love to see that.

      • Anonymous says:

        Voting rights for people living here? What’s wrong with it?

        I pay thousands more a month than you, why shouldn’t I have a say? I pay for it

      • Anonymous says:

        Takes 15 years, property, certain amount in banj and on and on

    • Anonymous says:

      A loan is not a “freebie”. A loan must be paid back. Not too smart are ya?

    • Anonymous says:

      You were so quick to post your anti-native rant you overlooked the operative word, tuition-free LOAN! So how can it be free if it’s a loan? Let me school you. The Student Loans Company in the UK grants tuition loans to eligible students in England, Wales, Scotland, and the EU. After you graduate, you have to pay this money back to HMRC in the form of income tax from your salary. The amount you pay back is also based on your salary. (Not sure how this will work for Caymanians who return home to seek employment).

      The earliest you’ll start repaying is either:
      the April after you leave your course
      the April 4 years after the course started, if you’re studying part-time

      Your repayments automatically stop if either:
      you stop working
      your income goes below the threshold

      Under limited circumstances, such as the death of the loan recipient, the loan may be written off. Typically, you will be paying on the loan until 30 years. This initiative will provide another avenue for disenfranchised Caymanians to access a tertiary-level education. But it is in no way shape or form a “Freebie”. Nor is it subsidized by any UK taxpayer, on the behalf of British Overseas Territories Citizens.

      • Anon says:

        Because Caymanians get tuition for approx £9k a year. The same as UK students whose parents have paid tax to the UK treasury all their lives while you have paid zero. Other ‘foreign’ students pay approx £20,000 a year. So Cayman students get a £3,000,000 rebate for FREE every year.

Leave a Reply to Anon. Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.