This is the only article I found on university education. It is actually about an Italian university which is attracting more foreign students, including from UK.

Italian university reaps benefits of post-Brexit student shift
SILVIA SCIORILLI BORRELLI

Financial Times US
Aug 18, 2026
Bocconi among institutions filling gap for applicants deterred by UK fees

At a gym on Bocconi University’s campus in Milan recently, one local member kicked up a fuss after an instructor led a class in English.

The episode underlined how the university’s push to step up international recruitment has resulted in a surge in foreign students, changing the district around the campus.

The Italian business school is one of the continental universities benefiting from a broader post-Brexit shift in European higher education, as EU students are put off applying to UK universities after losing access to domestic tuition fees, student loans and visa-free study.

But the institution is also seeing an influx of students from UK private schools. Bocconi has been increasing the number of its courses taught in English. Like other institutions, including in Belgium and the Netherlands, it finds that helps to attract more foreign students, including British ones.

Another attraction is that fees can be a fraction of those charged to foreign students by elite UK universities.

EU undergraduate applications to UK institutions fell 58 per cent between 2020 and 2024. “We have adapted in order to welcome international students,” Bocconi rector Francesco Billari said. “Milan is a part of what Bocconi offers, I think it began with Brexit and then Covid created momentum for urban campuses.”

Applications to Bocconi from abroad have more than doubled since 2023, reaching 60 per cent of the total for the bachelor programme, including a rise of more than 175 per cent from the UK, the university said.

Most of the foreign applications for the next academic year came from France, Turkey and the UK. The Italian business school is also attracting some of Britain’s most privileged students. In the past two years, it has been in the top four foreign destinations for privately educated students in the UK, while close to 30 students applied from Eton College this year, compared with eight in 2023.

“There is a certain degree of risk aversion, since applicants at Oxbridge have a single shot at applying to one or the other . . . they need a fallback if they don’t get in,” Billari said.

Nearly 7 per cent of UK private school leavers now enrol at universities overseas, compared with 5 per cent in 2021. At Bocconi, non-Italians make up more than one-third of the 15,000-plus students, up from 20 per cent in 2020.

Less well known internationally than some older British or French institutions, Bocconi has two-thirds the student body of Oxford or Cambridge, which have broader course offerings. But its relatively simple admissions process and cheaper fees are helping it to compete with its rivals.

International applicants can submit standardised test results or sit the university’s test offered multiple times a year, unlike Oxford and Cambridge, where candidates have a single deadline and must navigate subject-specific tests and interviews. It is also simpler than France’s grandes écoles, where entry is funnelled through the country’s highly selective prépas system of preparatory classes and exams.

Fees of about 18,000 a year are much cheaper than elite UK universities for overseas students and are significantly lower than for US institutions. Bocconi also provides financial support to more than a third of its students.

Billari said that applicants had also been attracted by the international academic staff, new courses on global law, AI, data and political science, and Milan’s international appeal.

New urban developments and better connections during the past decade in Milan are helping draw professionals in finance, fashion, design and technology from across the world. Foreign residents now account for about one-fifth of the city’s 1.4mn population.

Jasmine Levell, a Londoner studying international economics and finance at Bocconi, said she was attracted by the location as well as the university. “I wanted a change from London but still wanted to be in a city,” she said. “Milan is smaller, which makes everything very accessible, and for students it’s great.”

Bocconi was founded by luxury department store owner Ferdinando Bocconi in 1902 to train the managers, bankers and civil servants of a newly industrialising nation. Postwar alumni include former prime minister Mario Monti, Vodafone chief executive Margherita Della Valle and Kering chief Luca de Meo.

But one Italian London-based banker and Bocconi alumnus accompanying his 17-year-old son to an open day at the Milanese university was surprised at his son’s choice. “It’s somewhat tragically ironic that we spent all this money to send our kids to private school in England, hoping they’d go to Oxbridge and now here we are,” he said.

“It’s apparently cooler to live in Milan now for these kids who probably don’t want more of the same English countryside boarding school experience at university.”

Financial Times: Financial Times